Arts & Ideas

Rana Mitter talks to Laurence Scott about living in a digital world Channel 4's Humans and explores the writing of Muriel Spark with Dr Sarah Dillon as Spark's novel The Driver's Seat is adapted by Laurie Sansom for The National Theatre of Scotland. 2015 New Generation Thinker Sandeep Parmar discusses diversity in contemporary British poetry and the shortlists for this year's Forward Prizes. Painter Chris Gollon is touring British cathedrals with an exhibition of religious art.

Geoff Dyer reviews Milan Kundera's first novel in 12 years The Festival of Insignificance. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks talks to Philip Dodd about confronting religious violence

Director John Boorman talks to Matthew Sweet about his new film Queen and Country and its place in a career that includes Deliverance and Excalibur as well as Hope and Glory

Poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger reflects on his writing, and German history, in his latest book New Selected Poems. New Generation Thinker Danielle Thom and the historian and columnist Tim Stanley, join Anne McElvoy to discuss Tate Britain’s exhibition of history painting from the eighteenth century to present day. Plus writer Lindsay Johns reviews the first night of a new RSC production of Othello staring Hugh Quarshie and Lucien Msamati.

Martin Amis, Zachary Leader and Sarah Churchwell join Matthew Sweet to discuss Saul Bellow and his masterpiece, Herzog with readings by Kerry Shale.

Matthew Sweet has a go on Carsten Höller's slide at the Hayward Gallery with arts critic Charlotte Mullins and discusses freaks and fairgrounds with Dr Helen Davies, Vanessa Toulmin, Director of the National Fairground Archive and performance artist Martin O'Brien

Anne McElvoy discusses maths and music with Mathematician Eugenia Cheng. Susan Abulhawa talks about her latest book The Blue Between Sky and Water. And, New Generation Thinker Gregory Tate shares his research into the way British writers were inspired by the figure of Napoleon.

Rana Mitter talks to Kate Grenville, one of Australia's leading novelists, about depicting the history of white working class Australia and thinking herself into her mother’s life to write 'One Life: My Mother's Story'.

'One Man, Two Guvnors' playwright Richard Bean and novelists Steve Tolz and AD Miller join Matthew Sweet to discuss male friendships. Also filmmaker Johanna Hamilton on her new documentary - 1971, focusing on the events of March 8th that year when eight people broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania leading to embarrassing revelations for the agency.

BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council run a scheme to find the best young academics able to turn their research into radio. We meet some of this year's winners.

Rana Mitter and guests New York Times journalist David Brooks, the Iranian novelist Azar Nafisi and historian Tom Holland discuss the concept of humility. Vice or virtue? (Recorded earlier this week at the Hay Festival 2015)

Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy argues the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. Oxford scholar Theodore Zeldin celebrates the hidden pleasures of life and one of 2014 New Generation Thinkers, Preti Taneja reports on Romeo and Juliet performed in Kosovo.

Are work and progress making us inhuman? Anne McElvoy is joined by Steve Hilton, a former Senior Advisor to David Cameron, and Peter Fleming, Professor of Business and Society at City University, London. Actor Julian Glover performs an extract from Beowulf and talks about reworking the Old English poem for the stage. And New Generation Thinker Lucy Powell joins director Simon Godwin to discuss a new production of The Beaux' Stratagem at the National Theatre.

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz discusses income inequality. Novelist Alain Mabanckou reflects on the experiences of the African diaspora in France. Presented by Philip Dodd.

Matthew Sweet is joined by Colm Toibin to discuss the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop; Beth Shapiro on cloning mammoths and Fareed Zakharia, the American news presenter and journalist, makes the case for a liberal education.

A week on from the election, Anne McElvoy turns to three historians - Tim Bale, Krista Cowman and Jon Lawrence - to offer their views on the dramatic changes to the UK's political landscape; writer Xinran talks about the consequences of China's one-child policy, and Anne has a first night review of High Society at the Old Vic directed by Maria Freedman.

To mark Dante's birth 750 years ago, Philip Dodd chairs a Landmark discussion about his poem The Divine Comedy, with Prue Shaw, author of 'Reading Dante', scholar Nick Havely, the poet Sean O'Brien and writer Kevin Jackson.

Matthew Sweet is joined by former Labour strategist Alastair Campbell, epidemiologist and advocate for a healthy gut Tim Spector, journalist Michael Goldfarb, and Dr Luke Evans to consider the role our guts play in matters of politics, culture and beyond. Art historian and biographer Frances Spalding offers her verdict on a new ballet from Wayne McGregor, Woolf Works. And ahead of receiving an honorary Palme D'Or at Cannes this year, octogenarian Agnes Varda discusses her double life as celebrated filmmaker and artist.

Anne Enright, Ireland's first Laureate for Fiction, talks to Anne McElvoy about her new novel The Green Road. The economist Richard Layard and Professor of Psychology David M. Clark discuss the economics of psychological therapy. Plus, Christopher Hampton on translating the plays of Florian Zeller.

Philip Dodd in extended conversation with the actor Antony Sher whose recent roles include Willy Loman and Falstaff.

Matthew Sweet talks to Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Claire Preston and Gavin Francis about the mind-adventures of doctors in time and space. Sir Thomas Browne was a man fascinated by everything from nature to religion, to the shock of the new. How does his story resonate now?

Anne McElvoy is joined by the Booker Prize-winning writer Julian Barnes to discuss the painters he admires, and his new collection of essays on 19th and 20th century artists. The Pakistani novelist and women's rights activist Bapsi Sidhwa talks about her 1978 novel The Crow Eaters, which is about to be re-published. And Anne discusses poetry inspired by light, and in particular the work of Jackson Mac Low with James Wilkes and Greg Lynall.

Philip Dodd reports on the first night of Carol Ann Duffy's new adaptation of Everyman with Elaine Storkey, Michael Arditti & Tim Stanley and also talks to the the play’s choreographer Javier De Frutos. Clive James reads a new poem and the New York-based Iranian intellectual Hamid Dabashi talks about his book Can Non-Europeans Think.

Matthew Sweet interviews Alberto Manguel about his new book, Curiosity. As Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland turns 150 and a new exhibition opens at the Museum of Childhood in London, New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton, and curator Kiera Vaclavik, consider the cultural impact of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. And as Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd is released in the cinema, we ponder the Victorian writers who fall in and out of fashion in the modern era with Will Abberley.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this programme about private and public art, Philip Dodd talks to Nicholas Penny, the outgoing Director of the National Gallery and Budi Tek, global art collector and private museum owner.

As Ridley Scott's science fiction extravaganza, Blade Runner is re-released, Matthew Sweet is joined by the critics Roger Luckhurst and Sarah Churchwell, and by the philosopher Max de Gaynesford, to discuss its enduring significance. And Matthew talks to Eric Jarosinski, a writer who claims he found his creative voice on twitter under the name @NeinQuarterly, and to linguist and medievalist Kate Wiles, and book historian Sjoerd Levelt, about the parallels between the tweets of today and the marginalia of Medieval readers.

Philip Dodd continues his exploration of the culture wars by investigating the tension between cosmopolitanism and the nation state and how this is playing out in Europe. He speaks to Dr Ayça Çubukçu from the LSE, writer Agata Pyzik, Phillip Blond from think-tank ResPublica and Dr Andrew Dowling from the University of Cardiff.

Philip Dodd talks to one of the icons of what used to be called the counter-culture, Peggy Seeger. Her voice and career are emblematic of a life lived against the establishment grain.

In the first of three programmes exploring fractures and faultlines in contemporary society, Philip Dodd and guests discuss the tension between secularism and religion. With philosopher and atheist Daniel Dennett, sociologist of religion Linda Woodhead, and the writer and 'futurist' thinker Ziauddin Sardar.

Anne McElvoy hears from young people involved in the BBC's School Report Day. School children who have come to north-east England from other countries describe what home means. Writer Bidisha and sociologist David Ralph discuss how migrants and refugees construct a sense of home. Also, ahead of a new exhibition, British Museum curator Ian Jenkins and classicist Edith Hall discuss ideas of beauty in ancient Greece and how the body was portrayed.

Does the discipline of Sociology still have a role to play in the 21st century?To examine where we are at with Sociology in 2015, Philip Dodd is joined by three leading practitioners, the LSE's Richard Sennett, Frank Furedi from the University of Kent, and Monika Krause at Goldsmiths, as well as the journalist and author, Peter Oborne.

Matthew Sweet talks to Andrew Scull, author of Madness in Civilisation and Lisa Appignanesi about how different cultures around the world and through time have dealt with what we might call madness, insanity or the loss of reason. Matthew Beaumont also presents his history of an ancient crime but one still on the statute books of Massachussetts - Night Walking. Alongside, Deborah Longworth with a view of the flaneuse, the female solitary ambler and a pen-portrait of Dorothy Richardson whose relationship with the city of London outweighed all other passions in her life.

Anne McElvoy looks at what we mean by the idea of fairness. She also talks to novelist Tom McCarthy who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel C. His new work Satin Island follows a man working for a consultancy trying to sum up our age - who wonders whether there is a logic which holds the world together.

An extended interview in which Philip Dodd is joined by novelist, screenwriter and dramatist Hanif Kureishi. He discusses subjects including immigration, sexuality and mortality.

Douglas Coupland, Shumon Basar and Hans Ulrich Obrist explain the Extreme Present to Matthew Sweet. Their co-authored book The Age of Earthquakes builds on Marshall McLuhan's analysis of how technology influenced culture in the 1960s and is described as "a new history of how we are feeling in the world today when the future seems to be happening much faster than we ever thought." Also, Mathematician Hannah Fry and film critic Kevin Jackson explore the ways in which number-crunching geniuses have been depicted on the big screen.

Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro talks to Anne McElvoy about his latest book – The Buried Giant. And as two separate productions of Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone, are performed on stage in London – the playwright Roy Williams and the Greek scholar and translator, Oliver Taplin assess the enduring appeal of the play.

Churchill famously commented that ‘democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.' Rana Mitter and his guests David Runciman, Professor of Politics, University of Cambridge; Duncan Kelly, Reader in Political Thought, University of Cambridge; Patricia Thornton, University Lecturer in the Politics of China, University of Oxford and Tim Stanley, blogger and columnist for The Daily Telegraph test Free Thinking to its limits by looking at the alternatives to our own political system.

John Gray talks to Matthew Sweet about why the Aztecs might have had a better understanding of freedom than we do and other human illusions about meaning and progress. Also we consider how artistic movements become successful as the National Gallery stages an exhibition devoted to Paul Durand-Ruel, the french art dealer who discovered the Impressionists. Matthew talks to National gallery curator Christopher Riopelle. Also Jacky Klein, art historian and Godfrey Barker, man of letters and art critic discuss the anthropology of the art world through time.

Rana Mitter talks to Tony Harrison, the winner of the biennial David Cohen prize - one of our most prestigious literary awards. Two other writers join Rana - Ru Freeman and Romesh Gunesekara. Both from Sri Lanka and both on the programme to discuss the role of the writer in a country recovering from civil war. Finally, as part of the BBC's Get Creative initiative, the mathematician, Marcus du Sautoy, will be explaining why he values the arts as much as numbers.

Philip Dodd looks at the value of the arts with the former Chief Scientific Advisor to the EU, biologist Anne Glover,and discusses the notion of belonging and social identity in Europe with Dutch author Tommy Wieringa, Hungarian film director Kornel Mondruczo and academics Eric Kaufmann and Vesna Popovski.