Arts & Ideas

In the hunger for new ideas, are we forgetting the hard-earned lessons of the past? Rana Mitter chairs a discussion recorded in front of an audience at this year's Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead . James Rebanks is the Cumbrian shepherd sharing his farming knowledge with thousands of followers on his twitter account @herdyshepherd1 His book A Shepherd’s Life has been reprinted several times since its publication earlier this year. Professor Veronica Strang is a cultural anthropologist based at Durham University and the author of The Meaning of Water who has worked with communities all over the world exploring how they think of their relationship with the non-human and the land.

Thousands of soldiers fought in kilted regiments during the First World War. But what kind of cultural identity was adopted with the kilt? How far was it pervaded by a fatalistic sense of the Celt who ‘went forth to the war but … always fell’, or by the memory of the Highland Clearances? Peter Mackay of the University of St Andrews explores poetry and first-hand accounts from the war to find out.The New Generation Thinkers are the winners of an annual scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics at the start of their careers who can turn their research into fascinating broadcasts.The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Peter Mackay discussing his research you can download The Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcast.

For nearly 200 years, the name Cunard has evoked glamorous images of sleek cruise ships and transatlantic sea travel. Yet the legacy of the Cunard family's black sheep, the disinherited granddaughter Nancy Cunard, is less well-known. Sandeep Parmar of the University of Liverpool explores the tragic life of this scion of a wealthy family who became a revolutionary poet, publisher, modernist muse, anti-fascist and anti-racism activist.The New Generation Thinkers are the winners of an annual scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics at the start of their careers who can turn their research into fascinating broadcasts.The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Sandeep Parmar discussing her research you can download The Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcastProducer: Torquil Macleod

From TV talent contests such as The Great British Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing to the pressures of school exams and job interviews – competition is at the heart of the way we live our lives. What can we learn from sports stars whose lives are geared to cultivating a healthy competitive instinct? Is the desire to be successful bringing out the best in us - or the worst?Constructively and co-operatively arguing with Free Thinking presenter Anne McElvoy are:Margaret Heffernan, entrepreneur, CEO and author of A Bigger Prize: Why Competition isn’t Everything and Wilful BlindnessMatthew Syed, former England Table Tennis number one and Times columnist and author whose books include Bounce: The myth of talent and the power of practice and, most recently, Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth about Success.Cath Bishop, Olympic medallist and World Champion rower, worked as a British diplomat specialising in conflict issues, working in Bosnia and Iraq and is now a leadership speaker specialising in topics relating to high performance and resilience.Christopher Frayling, author and broadcaster, former head of Arts Council EnglandRecorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. Producer: Luke Mulhall

Widows are exceptions to every rule”, Charles Dickens tells us in his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, published in 1837. Eighty years later, in 1917, a tune called “Widows are Wonderful” rings through the theatres and homes of a war-stricken Britain. “Widow! That great, vacant estate!” writes poet Sylvia Plath after the Second World War as the country grieves in silence. Nadine Muller of Liverpool John Moores University uncovers the hidden history of widows in Britain from the 19th century to the present day and explores what has made them so tragically melancholic, exceptional, and wonderful in British culture.The New Generation Thinkers are the winners of an annual scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics at the start of their careers who can turn their research into fascinating broadcasts.The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Nadine discussing her research you can download the Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcast.

'We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further'. Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" created waves when it was first published nearly 10 years ago. Rebutting religions of all kinds Dawkins became one of 'the New Atheists', a group of thinkers including Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. He first came to public attention though in 1976 with his iconic book "The Selfish Gene" which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution. In 2013 he was voted the world's top thinker in Prospect magazine's poll of over 10,000 readers from over 100 countries. Richard Dawkins talks to Philip Dodd about his memoir, "Brief Candle in the Dark" in which he explores his life in the intersection between culture, religion and science. Recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead Producer: Luke Mulhall

The colourful life of Arthur Macmurrough Kavanagh overturns everything we think we know about disabled people’s lives in the 19th century. Born without hands and feet, he was an adventurous traveller and a Member of Parliament, a tiger-hunting landowner whose attempts to resist the rising tide of Irish nationalism were ultimately defeated, and whose amazing career has been largely forgotten. But how did his first biographer meet the challenge of writing his life? Clare Walker Gore of the University of Cambridge discusses The Life of Arthur Macmurrough Kavanagh and what this fascinating biography contributes to our understanding of disabled people in the 19th century.The New Generation Thinkers are the winners of an annual scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics at the start of their careers who can turn their research into fascinating broadcasts.The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Clare Walker Gore answer questions about her research you can download The Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcast.

Are the rules of drama increasingly influencing the way the world is presented to us? TV news bulletins now employ chapter headings, dramatisations and music. Hollywood transforms real life stories into dramatized blockbusters at a dizzying rate. As it becomes harder to separate fact from fiction are we overvaluing the ‘real’? In this new multimedia environment, do we understand what the new rules of fiction and storytelling are?Sorting out facts from faction with Free Thinking presenter Matthew Sweet are:John Yorke, a visiting Professor at Newcastle University, is a former Controller of Drama at the BBC and Channel 4, whose CV includes East Enders, Shameless, Life on Mars, George Gently and Wolf Hall. He is the author of Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them.Journalist Bim Adewunmi is culture editor at Buzz Feed UK and writes often about popular culture and how it intersects with gender and raceAllan Little is a journalist and broadcaster and has been a foreign affairs reporter for the BBC for 25 years, reporting from more than eighty countries. He was recently awarded the Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism.Emily Woof is a radio and theatre writer, a performer and novelist. She grew up in Newcastle. Her latest novel is The Lightning Tree.Recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead.Producer: Torquil Macleod

For over 400 years it's been claimed that the first Medici Duke of Florence was mixed race, his mother a slave of African descent. Catherine Fletcher of Swansea University asks if this extraordinary story about the 16th-century Italian political dynasty could be true. Or do the tales of Alessandro de' Medici tell us more about the history of racism and anti-racism than about the man himself?The New Generation Thinkers are the winners of an annual scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics at the start of their careers who can turn their research into fascinating broadcasts.The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Catherine Fletcher discussing her research you can download the Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcast.

Does Britain need more people like Russell Brand, Vivienne Westwood, Richard Branson and Boris Johnson? In business people talk of the power of the ‘disruptive influence’, but is the route to success actually based on discipline and obeying rules - or should we emulate those mavericks prepared to take risks and think differently? Philip Dodd asks which institutions should consider ripping up their rule books and starting again. Joining this debate about law, politics, business and the history of our relationship with rule-breaking is: Simon Heffer is a historian, Daily Telegraph columnist and author of Strictly English: The correct way to write... and why it matters and High Minds. Peter Tatchell has been campaigning for human rights, democracy, LGBT freedom and global justice since 1967. Joyce Quin is a former MP for Gateshead East and has held a number of ministerial posts including at the Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She now sits in the House of Lords. Recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival Sage Gateshead.

This year's Free Thinking Lecture is given by the American poet Claudia Rankine. Her book 'Citizen: An American Lyric' is a New York Times best seller and has become an instant classic. At one of the most volatile moments in American race history, her meditations on the language used to describe tennis star Serena Williams and on events such as the Ferguson riots and the shooting of the teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida provide the vehicle for an incisive interrogation of justice and injustice, exposing the myth of a 'post-racial' 21st century.A professor of English at the University of Southern California and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Claudia Rankine grew up first in Kingston Jamaica and then New York City and has also lived in England. 'Citizen' has been called 'the book of a generation' and one which 'throws a Molotov cocktail' at the idea that the struggle against racial injustice has been won.The winner of this year's Forward Prize for Poetry, the PEN Open Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award comes to Sage Gateshead to talk to Free Thinking presenter Matthew Sweet about the power of language and what it means to be black in the new millennium.Recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead.

Philip Dodd talks to one of the icons of what used to be called the counter-culture, Peggy Seeger. Another chance to hear a conversation recorded earlier this year before Peggy Seeger joins the line up of guests performing at Sage Gateshead over Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival this weekend. Peggy Seeger's voice and career are emblematic of a life lived against the establishment grain. Born in New York in 1935 she first made her name as one of the leaders of the British Folk Revival, and with her partner Ewan MacColl, she helped to create one of the most innovative radio series of the last fifty years, the Radio Ballads, which blended original music, sound effects, and first-person interviews. In the 1950s she had her US passport withdrawn following a visit to China and chose to stay in Europe. It wasn't wholly unexpected. She had long aligned herself with the radical left and was an outspoken champion of feminism - one of her most famous songs being "I'm Gonna Be an Engineer". When official US attitudes softened after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1994 she returned to live in the States, but recently moved back to the United Kingdom and is still recording and releasing albums, including her latest CD Everything Changes.

Long Irish novelist Edna O'Brien in conversation. As she publishes her latest novel The Little Red Chairs she looks back at her literary career which has included short stories, a memoir, plays and poems. Her first novel The Country Girls was published in 1960 and it was banned by the Irish censor for its discussion of sex and social attitudes. Her latest story The Little Red Chairs depicts a multi-cultural Ireland in which a wanted war criminal from the Balkans settles in a west coast village community.

Matthew Sweet is joined by chess grandmaster, Garry Kasparov, and former British ambassador to Russia, Tony Brenton, to discuss Putin and Putinism. BBC 6 Music's Stuart Maconie author of The Pie at Night - a book which explores northern leisure pursuits - reviews an exhibition about Salford Lads Club. Feminist and co-founder of the group Justice for Women, Julie Bindel, and Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship magazine look at the phenomenon of 'no platforming'. Radio journalist Gillian Reynolds pays tribute to Philip French and discusses working on Radio 3's Critics' Forum with the late film critic and radio producer. The Nippers of Salford Lads Club is on at the People's History Museum from Wed 28 Oct 2015 - Sun 17 Jan. Stuart Maconie's book is called The Pie at Night. Garry Kasparov's book is called Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must be Stopped.

New Generation Thinker, Dr Alun Withey has researched an unusual experiment in health care which took place in the 18th century in Bamburgh in Northumberland.

Anne McElvoy talks to New Generation Thinker and medical historian Alun Withey and former NHS executive Mark Britnell about health systems past and present. She discusses with Abigail Morris of the Jewish Museum an exhibition there exploring the cultural significance of blood and hears from Jane Taylor about her lecture and play exploring a strange but true tale of resurrection which is part of the Being Human Festival of the Humanities running across UK universities. Professor Daniel Pick discusses his research into psychology and remembers Professor Lisa Jardine - whose death was announced earlier this week. Mark Britnell's book is called In Search of the Perfect Health System and is out now. Blood runs at the Jewish Museum in London from November 5th - February 28th. Being Human: a festival of the humanities organised in conjunction with universities across the UK runs from November 12th - 22nd. http://beinghumanfestival.org/ Several of BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC's New Generation Thinkers are taking part. Newes From The Dead - Jane Taylor's semi-staged lecture is being performed at The Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds on Thursday 19th November.

Erica Jong has followed her book "Fear of Flying" with "Fear of Dying". She talks to Philip Dodd about feminism and ageing. Richard Jones discusses Eugene O'Neill's 1922 drama The Hairy Ape - which stars Bertie Carvel as the ship labourer trying to find a way to belong in the divided society of New York. Ben Bernanke, former chair of the US Federal Reserve, has a more contemporary view of the divide between rich and poor in New York. The Hairy Ape is at The Old Vic Theatre in London from October 17th to November 21st. Erica Jong's latest book is called Fear of Dying. Ben Bernanke's book is called The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and its Aftermath

As Halloween fast approaches, Matthew Sweet is joined round the Free Thinking cauldron by guests including Marina Warner and Suzannah Lipscomb to consider the season of the witch. Film critic Larushka Ivan-zadeh and Claire Nally from Northumbria University review new blockbuster The Last Witch Hunter starring Vin Diesel, and consider the depictions of witches on film ahead of a screening of Vincent Price's 1968 horror classic Witchfinder General. Catherine Spooner of Lancaster University and historian Suzzanah Lipscomb offer an historical guide to the famous witch trials from Pendle to Salem. And author Marina Warner discusses her father's relationship with the ghost writer M.R. James.

The new James Bond film Spectre is reviewed by New Generation Thinker Sam Goodman. The Egyptian feminist writer Nawal El Saadawi talks to Rana Mitter about facing death threats and surviving prison - and her novels which include Memoirs of a Woman Doctor and God Dies by the Nile. Lord Browne, former CEO of BP, makes the case for business to engage with society in a discussion with Mark Littlewood from the Institute of Economic Affairs. Dr Elisabeth Kendall has been studying the way so called Islamic State use classical Arabic poetry on social media. Elisabeth Kendall is the author of Twenty-First Century Jihad Connect: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically with Society by John Browne with Robin Nuttall and Tommy Standlen, is out now. Sam Goodman is the author of British Spy Fiction and the End of Empire Spectre certificate 12A is out in cinemas nationwide from Monday. Nawal El Sadaawi is the author of The Hidden Face of Eve, Woman at Point Zero, The hidden face of Eve, God Dies By The Nile.

Marilynne Robinson, Thomas Harding, Imtiaz Dharker discuss ideas of home with Philip Dodd. Are we becoming increasingly rootless, or simply finding new ways to put down roots. Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson is the author of a novel called Home and finds her own roots in Iowa and in her Calvinist faith. In her new collection of essays The Givenness of Things, she explores the ideas that make up the religious and philosophical homeland of Europe and America – Calvinism, Humanism, the Reformation, the self. Thomas Harding’s family originate in Germany. In his new book The House by the Lake he relates the changing ownership and fortunes of his family’s summer house in eastern Berlin and with it the history of Germany from the thirties up to the present. It's his follow up to his best-selling book Hanns and Rudolph.Poet and artist Imtiaz Dharker describes herself as a "Pakistani Calvinist Scottish Muslim" and her life has taken her from Lahore, to Glasgow, to Bombay, to Wales and finally to London – "I think displacement is often a good and useful thing for a writer", she says. And as a new exhibition dedicated to The World of Charles and Ray Eames opens, Edwin Heathcote takes Philip on an imaginative tour of their iconic house, Case Study House #8, which they designed to "express man's life in the modern world."The World of Charles and Ray Eames runs at the Barbican in London from 21st October to 14th February. Marilynne Robinson's Essay collection The Givenness of Things is out now. Thomas Harding's book is called The House by the Lake Imtiaz Dharker's most recent poetry collection is called Over The Moon.

Matthew Sweet talks to Richard Mabey about his new book The Cabaret of Plants: Botany and the Imagination and hears how so much of our history has been driven by our discovery and exploitation of their properties but it's time to put our own human social preoccupations aside. Joining them, Andrea Wulf presents her findings on the extraordinary scientist Alexander von Humboldt, a seminal figure in human attempts to understand nature. And it was nearly fifty years ago that The Black Panther Party was founded. Stanley Nelson, director of a new documentary history, Vanguard of the Revolution and Mohammed Mubarak, one of the movements official photographers join Matthew to discuss the Black Panthers' role in a political awakening for black Americans and their impact on wider American culture. Presenter: Matthew Sweet Guest: Richard Mabey author of The Cabaret of Plants: Botany and the Imagination Guest: Mohammed Mubarak Guest: Stanley Nelson, dir The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution Andrea Wulf author of The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt The Lost Hero of Science

The actress and author Meera Syal and playwright Tanika Gupta discuss adapting Syal's novel Anita and Me for the stage. Chosen as a GCSE set text, the novel Anita and Me depicts the friendship of a Punjabi teenager Meena and Anita, a white more rebellious girl living in the same West Midlands village in the 1970s. Filmed in 2002, the autobiographical novel has now been adapted for stage by Tanika Gupta, directed by the Artistic Director of Birmingham Rep Roxana Silbert. Rana Mitter chairs a discussion about Anita and Me, growing up in 70s Britain, the surrogacy industry in India and having a rebel in the family with questions from an audience at Birmingham Rep Theatre and as part of the Birmingham Literature Festival. Anita and Me runs at Birmingham Repertory Theatre until October 24th. It's on at Theatre Royal Stratford East from October 29th - November 21st. Meera Syal's latest novel is called The House of Hidden Mothers.

Salman Rushdie talks to Philip Dodd about a sense of belonging, why we are living in strange times and how his new novel mixes 1001 Nights with comic book heroes. Also historian Niall Ferguson on Henry Kissinger and cold war politics. Salman Rushdie's novel is called Two Years Eight Months and Twenty Eight Nights. Niall Ferguson's biography of Henry Kissinger is called Kissinger: Volume I: The Idealist, 1923-1968

Matthew Sweet hears from Alex Clark direct from the 2015 Man Booker Award ceremony on this year's winning novel. There's discussion of imaginative histories of Weather and Twilight with Alex Harris and Peter Davidson. They'll be explaining why painters first noticed the witching hour at the end of the 18th century, and why Anglo-Saxons only told stories about the winter, why April showers were precious in the middle-ages and fog was the novelists' weather of choice in the 19th century. Plus the poet Michael Rosen, whose new anthology links anti-Semitism, fascism and war with the lives of his parents and grandparents, joins Matthew in the great outdoors to remember the Kibbo Kift Kin, the 1920s youth movement which combined woodcraft with cutting edge costume and art and arcane and possibly occult dreams of changing the world forever. The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, a new book by Annebella Pollen accompanies Intellectual Barbarians, an exhibition at London's Whitechapel Gallery, marking the short but colourful history of an organisation which fell foul of both Right and Left.

The American poet Mark Doty, Professor Sarah Churchwell and the young British poet Andrew McMillan join Matthew Sweet for a programme on National Poetry Day dedicated to one of the classics of American poetry, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Readings will be performed by William Hope.

Antony Sher and the stars of next Sunday's Drama on 3: Death of a Salesman, Zoë Wanamaker and David Suchet, discuss acting Arthur Miller with Philip Dodd. Also, are university campuses becoming places where free speech and debate is difficult? To discuss Free Thinking brings together Director of Curriculum for Cohesion and university lecturer Dr Matthew Tariq Wilkinson, journalist and Deputy Editor of the New Statesman Helen Lewis, and lawyer and author Anthony Julius.

James Fenton discusses his career as a poet and journalist ahead of collecting the PEN Pinter Prize 2015 in a ceremony tonight. New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton researches the plays performed by Suffragettes. She offers her verdict on the film Suffragette, starring Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham Carter and Carey Mulligan. And Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street 25 years ago. Anne McElvoy is at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester to discuss her legacy with her official biographer, Charles Moore, and Conservative MP, Kwasi Kwarteng.

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro discusses 1606 - the year Macbeth was written. And Matthew Sweet is joined by Sonia Massai and Andrew Hilton to review the new film starring Michael Fassbender and look at other cinematic versions of "the Scottish play". Matthew also talks to playwright Barrie Keeffe about a revival of his 1977 play Barbarians, while Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Fern Riddell offers her take on the controversy surrounding the Jack The Ripper Museum in London's East End.

On the final day of Jeremy Corbyn's first Labour Party conference as Leader, Philip Dodd presents a discussion about populism in politics, with philosopher Roger Scruton, historian Justin Champion, journalist and commentator John Lloyd, and activist Sirio Canos Donnay, a representative of the Spanish populist movement Podemos. Romola Garai stars in a new production of Measure for Measure directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins. They discuss this drama of puritanism and carnal desire.

Margaret Atwood's new novel imagines the future of sexual desire in a social experiment. Professors Yuval Harari and Barry Cunliffe explore the long history of mankind. And Rana Mitter visits the new exhibition about Celts at the British Museum and discusses it with historian and author Dr Janina Ramirez and Professor Barry Cunliffe.

Orhan Pamuk, novelist and Nobel Prize winner is in conversation with Edmund de Waal - the potter and best-selling author of the Hare with Amber Eyes - who has been on a quest to explore the history of porcelain. Philip Dodd chairs a conversation ranging across the colours white and red, appreciating and conserving craft skills, the way historic objects are displayed in museums, and the changing identity of cities such as Desden, Jingdezhen and Istanbul.

Rana Mitter explores why we sleep with pioneering researcher into the body clock, Russell Foster; Matt Berry, actor, comedian and writer who wrestles with insomnia; Brigitte Steger who has explored Japanese and other global sleeping cultures and Katharine Craik, a renaissance scholar whose new opera project for children is called Watching...back in the 16th century the watching hours were part of a segmented sleep pattern which only disappeared with the industrial revolution.

Professor Lynda Nead has curated an exhibition at the Foundling Museum in London which looks at depictions of "the Fallen Woman" in Victorian England by artists including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Richard Redgrave, George Frederic Watts and Thomas Faed. The display includes a specially-commissioned sound installation by musician and composer Steve Lewinson. Lynda Nead joins Anne McElvoy along with James Bartholomew, an historian of the Welfare State who has studied Victorian responses to poverty. Gillian Tett is managing editor of the New York office of The Financial Times. She reported on the financial crisis of 2007-8 in close detail, but before she became a journalist Tett trained as an anthropologist. Her latest book, The Silo Effect, combines reportage with anthropology to identify the deep structure in our thinking that contributed to the crisis: the tendency to organize things into discrete silos. Steve Silberman is a Wired reporter and author of an article on "The Geek Syndrome" which went viral. He talks to Anne McElvoy about why we need to think about autism in a new way, along with Matthew Smith, an historian of psychiatry at the University of Strathclyde and former Radio 3 New Generation Thinker.

Rana Mitter is joined by young academics who are exploring Indian history during British rule and looking at India in the second world war

Frederick Forsyth discusses spy fiction and fact as he publishes his memoirs and Matthew Sweet explores our emotions with New Generation Thinker Dr Tiffany Watt-Smith, Thomas Dixon and Susie Orbach. Also a review of portraits chosen at the National Portrait Gallery by Simon Schama

South African artist William Kentridge discusses making animated films, drawings and directing the opera Lulu. William Boyd's latest novel Sweet Caress traces the life and work of a photographer. Philip Dodd talks to him about viewing 20th century history and news events through the lens of a fictional photo journalist. New Generation Thinker Zoe Norridge, documentary photographer Anna Fox and Eamonn McCabe – portrait photographer and former picture editor of the Guardian newspaper - discuss the impact of digital photography on the way we see the world.

Radio 3 presenter Ian McMillan, poet Kate Clanchy and Judith Palmer of the Poetry Society introduce the winning entries in this year's Proms Poetry Competition. The Poems are read by Carolyn Pickles.

dha Bari and Houda Echouafni on this powerful islamic folk-cycle - Arabian Nights

David Hare, one of Britain's leading playwrights, discusses his new memoir, 'The Blue Touch Paper', with Matthew Sweet. When the National Theatre published its poll of the hundred best plays of the 20th century, David Hare had written five of them. He explains how he became a writer and the high price he and those around him paid for that decision.

Michael Cox explores the history of the London School of Economics with Stephanie Flanders

The American novelist Willa Cather's 'The Song of the Lark' was first published a hundred years ago in 1915. Her biographer Dame Hermione Lee talks to New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon about Cather's story of a young girl who leaves her home town in Colorado to pursue a career as an opera singer. The reader is Laurel Lefkow. Recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music.

Ian Christie on the Lumiere brothers' invention of the world's first film camera in 1895.

Why has Denmark played such a significant role in shaping modern ideas about childhood? The Danish-born historian and lecturer Lars Tharp and the writer on children's literature Julia Eccleshare explore the work and legacy of Hans Christian Andersen with Ian McMillan.

The history of the National Trust with Dame Helen Ghosh and Patrick Barkham.

The novelists Helen Dunmore and Louise Welsh discuss DH Lawrence's 'The Rainbow', first published a hundred years ago in 1915, with Rana Mitter. The novel, which was banned on publication, tells the story of the Brangwen family as they face the decline of their pastoral life in the face of industrialisation. Presented by Rana Mitter.

Philip Hoare and Merlin Holland discuss Wilde's tumultuous year. With Shahidha Bari.

Actress Lisa Dwan and singer Susan Bullock discuss the role of memory in performance.

Its early readers included Queen Victoria and a young Oscar Wilde. 150 years after it became a publishing sensation the writer Lynne Truss and children's novelist Philip Ardagh discuss 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and its enduring appeal to readers, writers and film makers with Anne McElvoy.Recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music.

Poets Jo Shapcott and Sean O'Brien discuss Ezra Pound's poetry collection, 'Cathay'.