Arts & Ideas

The poet and playwright Tony Harrison talks to Matthew Sweet about his passionate commitment to the classics, poetic language and political writing over the last fifty years. This programme, presented by Matthew Sweet, was recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of the BBC Proms. To find out further information about the events which are free to attended go to bbc.co.uk/proms

The poet Craig Raine discusses the ways in which borrowing and reshaping existing phrases is a feature of music and literature and why writers adopt a magpie approach to language. This programme, presented by Anne McElvoy, was recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of the BBC Proms. To find out further information about the events which are free to attended go to bbc.co.uk/proms

On the centenary of Britain's entry into the First World War Dame Shirley Williams and Colonel Tim Collins introduce an anthology of poetry from the war. Recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music, before this evening's Prom, and featuring actors Roslyn Hill and Monty d'Inverno. This programme, is presented by Anne McElvoy and and was recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of the BBC Proms. To find out further information about the events which are free to attended go to bbc.co.uk/proms

Rana Mitter talks to the actors Janet Suzman and Alexandra Gilbreath about Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Both women have played the part of Kate -- both in acclaimed RSC productions and both made it their own. They'll be discussing the play's sexual politics and what Shakespeare has to say to audiences today. This programme was recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of the BBC Proms. To find out further information about the events which are free to attended go to bbc.co.uk/proms

Poet and librettist Michael Symmons Roberts and broadcaster Reverend Richard Coles on the literature which inspired John Tavener from George Herbert and John Donne to Blake. This programme presented by Matthew Sweet and was recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of the BBC Proms.To find out further information about the events which are free to attended go to bbc.co.uk/proms

The Booker prize winning novelist Pat Barker, author of the Regeneration Trilogy on the subject of the First World War, and the poet Owen Sheers discuss writers', musicians' and painters' responses to war including the work of Keith Douglas, UA Fanthorpe, David Jones, Alun Lewis and the paintings of CW Nevinson. The reader is Samuel West. This programme was recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of the BBC Proms. To find out further information about the events which are free to attended go to bbc.co.uk/proms

Professor Rana Mitter discusses contemporary Chinese culture with a novelist and film maker Xiaolu Guo and Dr Katie Hill, an expert on Chinese Modern Art. The event was recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of BBC Proms. To find out further information about the events which are free to attended go to bbc.co.uk/proms

Does emotion or reason dictate the financial markets? Anne McElvoy is joined by Frances Hudson, Global Thematic Strategist at Standard Life Investments; Daniel Ben Ami, financial journalist, author of 'Cowardly Capitalism' Greg Davis, Head of Behavioural and Quantitative Investment Philosophy, Barclays and Adrian Wooldridge of the Economist whose book 'The Fourth Revolution - The Global Race to Reinvent the State is out now.' Recorded at The Bowler Hat at this year's City of London Festival.

Billy Kahora, one of the writers nominated for this year's Caine Prize for African writing joins Philip Dodd to reflect on the way artists in Kenya respond to the political and religious unrest in the country.

Matthew Sweet interviews Karen Joy Fowler author of a novel which looks at the consequences of introducing a primate into a family and the human fascination with anthropomorphism with animal studies experts Susan McHugh and Giovanni Aloi. From Cape Town the South African man of the theatre Athol Fugard pays tribute to his late friend and fellow activist the author Nadine Gordimer. After today’s Howard League conference on community sentencing Matthew asks David Wilson and Gerard Lemos, commentators on the penal system, whether there is an alternative to prison or if prison is the alternative.

With Anne McElvoy. Curator Frances Spalding and Dr Alexandra Harris discuss what portaits of Virginia Woolf convey of her character as a new exhibition opens at the National Portrait Gallery. Richard Flanagan's father was a Japanese POW on the "Death Railway". The Australian novelist's new book The Narrow Road to the Deep North was inspired by this.New Generation Thinker Alun Withey looks back at medical history. Stella Rimmington, former director general of MI5 and diplomat Alan Judd discuss turning their experiences of the security services into fiction.

Philip Dodd is joined by political commentator Steve Richards to discuss the new production of Richard III which stars Martin Freeman and is set in the 1970s. Historian Joanna Bourke considers changing medical attitudes to pain. She's joined by Marion Coutts, who has written about her husband's death in The Iceberg, and by the comedian Arthur Smith. Should we equate animals with humans when talking about rights? New Generation Thinker Alasdair Cochrane argues for a shift in our thinking.

Richard Linklater filmed the actor who stars in Boyhood over 12 years from a 6 year old to a college youth. Matthew Sweet and author Toby Litt review the project and discuss growing up. Artist Cory Arcangel talks about his book composed from tweets and working in digital media. He also explores the themes explored in Digital Revolution at the Barbican Centre, which brings together film-makers, artists, game developers and musicians. As state schools across England prepare for the introduction of coding to the curriculum, journalist Aleks Krotoski and Benjamin Southworth - digital entrepreneur and former deputy chief executive of the government's Tech City initiative, join Matthew to discuss how - if at all - we should be preparing for the 'digital age'. Plus we hear another column from one of this year’s New Generation Thinkers, Jo Cohen, who asks whether we need to rethink the American Constitution, as the country recovers from its Independence day celebrations.

'€˜Oh what a lovely Savas' begins Rana Mitter in this edition of Free Thinking, using the Turkish word for War. Along with Sean McMeekin of the Koc University in Istanbul, the novelist Kamila Shamsie, Naoko Shimazu of Birkbeck College and Erez Manela of Harvard University Rana puts Japan, China, India, the Ottomans, Koreans and others centre stage in the years 1914 to 1918. If you weren’t from one of the European Great Powers could you even get into the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 which was to lead to the Treaty of Versailles? And was the failure of the Racial Equality Clause to get on the statute books at this conference the beginning of the end of Empire even for those who won the war?

Yael Farber directs Richard Armitage in the Crucible at the Old Vic. She talks to Philip Dodd about fear, conspiracy and her South African roots. Also Liberalism past and present. Edmund Fawcett author of Liberalism: The History of an Idea is in the studio alongside historian and Telegraph writer Tim Stanley and Alex Callinicos, Professor at King's College, London. Plus another column from one of the 2014 Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers: Tiffany Watt-Smith explores war neuroses and shell shock after the first World War.

From Paul Nash paintings of blasted tree stumps in the first world war to today's commemorative planting: Paul Gough, Gabriel Hemery and Gail Ritchie join Samira Ahmed to explore woods and trees in war and peacetime.

Jonathan Powell and historians Margaret MacMillan, Orlando Figes and Adam Tooze explore the Great Powers with Anne McElvoy. The First World War shattered the power balance in Europe. As we confront an uncertain world order, who are the great powers today, how has their role changed and where do they now stand in determining geo-politics?

Samira Ahmed discusses feminism with American artist Barbara Kruger and journalist Laurie Penny;and cartoonist Posy Simmonds talks about the role of cartoonists responding to politics and international affairs

The Thirty-Nine Steps first appeared in Blackwoods Magazine in August and September 1915 and depicts Europe on the edge of war in May and June 1914. It quickly became popular reading in the trenches and on the home front, and nearly a hundred years and three film adaptations later, its popularity is enduring. In a special edition of Free Thinking, as part of Radio 3's focus on World War One, Matthew Sweet talks to Buchan's biographer Andrew Lownie and Buchan scholars Dr Michael Redley and Dr Kate Macdonald about the connections between Buchan's own war experience and The 39 Steps, and to Professors Elleke Boehmer and Terence Ranger about how ideas about empire and adventure play out in the novel.

A new collection of Ranter writings from the English Civil War sheds light on their extreme libertarian views. Anne McElvoy is joined by the book's editor Nigel Smith. Plus journalist Rod Liddle and Conservative Party politician Douglas Carswell discuss libertarianism today. New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton reflects on the Actresses' Franchise League. And a 62 metre photographic installation unveiled at London's Gloucester Road Tube station depicts the US reconnaissance base in North Yorkshire. Anne speaks to the image's creator Trevor Paglen.

Philip Dodd talks to the artist, Sean Scully, about his latest show and explores our perception of colour with neuroscientist Jamie Ward and fashion expert, Caroline Cox.

Matthew Sweet talks to Philip Hensher, who's novel The Emperor Waltz draws together stories about a man who founds the first gay bookshop in London, a young painter who joins the Bauhaus and a woman fascinated by a Roman cult. We also discuss John La Rose's New Beacon project which was was the focal point of a black radical publishing industry that emerged in the UK in the late sixties, with the poets Linton Kwesi Johnson and Anthony Joseph and the co-founder of New Beacon Sarah White. New Generation Thinker Daisy Hay looks at the Victorian practice of keeping hair as a personal memento. Plus the Sheffield documentary festival has just premiered a film called "Peter De Rome Grandfather of Gay Porn - Matthew Sweet has been to meet him.

Prize-winning first novelists Eimear McBride and Nathan Filer join Anne McElvoy to discuss literary experimentation. Matt Thorne gives us a first night review of the European premiere of Anne Washburn's play Mr Burns which is set in a world without electricity. New Generation Thinker Sophie Coulombeau examines British philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham€'s €'Universal Tattoo'€™. And as Chancellor George Osborne makes his annual Mansion House speech to the City of London we get Peter Knight and Janette Rutterford to consider the image of finance past and present.

The director of the Hayward Ralph Rugoff, former principal Royal Ballet dancer Deborah Bull and neuroscientist Professor Patrick Haggard explore presentations of and research into the human body. And what is the meaning of 'community' with philosopher and writer Julian Baggini, journalist and historian Tim Stanley and writer Ziauddin Sardar. Plus Preti Taneja, one of the 2014 Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers, on the female casting of King Lear.

Amma Asante's film Belle depicts an illegitimate mixed-race girl brought up in eighteenth-century London in Kenwood House, the household of Lord Mansfield. Director Amma Asante and Dr Kit Davies talk to Matthew Sweet about the issues raised in the film. Writer Rosamund Bartlett has a first night review of Brian Friel's stage version of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons which opens at London's Donmar Warehouse tonight. There's the first column from the 2014 Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers: Tom Charlton brings those who would question the value of a research library to book. Plus Andrew Pendleton and Ryan Bourne discuss whether a globalised economy an environmental problem or a solution.

Philip Dodd discusses Kenneth Clark's Civilisation and arts broadcasting with Janina Ramirez, Kim Evans, Gus Casely-Hayford and Charles Uzzell-Edwards, aka artist Pure Evil.

Rana Mitter remembers what happened in Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989 with people who were there. He also asks what the sociological background to events on that day was. And how has the memory or even the truth of that day and what lay behind it faired in the 25 years that have followed?

Matthew Sweet discusses online identity theft and religious belief with American novelist Joshua Ferris, as he publishes his new novel To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. As the London Festival of Architecture opens with a debate on whether London needs more tall towers, Matthew talks to Sir Terry Farrell, Owen Hatherley, Nicholas Boys Smith, Angela Brady, about how London should look in the future. And we head to the Foundling Museum, whose latest exhibition marks the 250th anniversary of the death of William Hogarth to find out how artist Jessie Brennan has re-imagined ‘A Rake’s Progress’ without people, just a famous London tower block.

Arianna Huffington talks to Anne McElvoy about measuring success using The Third Metric. Richard Hytner and Kerrie Fleming look at stress in business and the nature of leadership. Zia Haider Rahman on his debut novel In the Light of What We Know which contains elements of his own Bangladeshi background, a scholarship to Oxford and time spent as an investment banker on Wall Street. Plus Anne pays tribute to the late Maya Angelou's influence and humour.

Presenter Rana Mitter, is joined on the BBC stage at the Hay Festival by writer and provocateur, PJ O'Rourke and the Freakonomics authors, the economist Steven D Levitt and journalist Stephen J Dubner to discuss decision-making, how emotional and economic stability leads to self-absorbtion, how difficult it is to stop and think about anything and why there is such a gulf between the economic and political and personal rationales for the nature of health care provision here in the UK, the US and around the world.

Rana Mitter talks to historian and MP Tristram Hunt about how Britain's experience of Empire shaped today's global cities. Plus a discussion about the future of India with Lord Bhikhu Parekh, Dr Shruti Patel and the writer, Pankaj Mishra.

Anne McElvoy looks at the resurgence of non-fiction writing and the essay as a form hearing from Jonathan Freedland, Wayne Kostenbaum and Maia Jenkins. Novelist Tim Winton talks about his new book Eyrie. Political commentators Robert Ford and Peter Kellner explore when does populism becomes extremism.

As the British Library launches a website devoted to writers' notebooks and manuscripts, Discovering Literature, novelist Lawrence Norfolk takes a look at his own notebooks, and talks to AS Byatt, John Cooper Clarke and David Mitchell about theirs. He's joined in the studio by Wendy Cope, Bidisha, and Rachel Foss of the British Library for a discussion about notebooks, creativity, and how the digital age might be changing literature.

Matthew Sweet talks to Iain Sinclair and New Generation Thinker Dr Greg Tate about a walk to mark John Clare's death 150 years ago. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, discuss how privacy vs expression and remembering vs forgetting clash in the internet age. Plus Cherry Potter and Daniel Bird give us an assessment of Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk.

Nick Payne talks to Anne McElvoy about his play Incognito and the man who stole Einstein's brain. New Generation Thinker Fern Riddell reviews Sky Atlantic's Penny Dreadful and our fascination with Victorian Gothic. Helen McCarthy and Pauline Neville-Jones discuss female diplomats. Plus another New Generation Thinker, Jules Evans, reports on the Reader Organisation's Conference at the British Library, the recent campaigns against the prison book ban and our relationship with reading.

Interview with the prominent Czech writer who has just published memoir, My Crazy Century, followed by a discussion debating whether Europe will always need an East. And why are we interested in science fiction film and theatre.

MJ Hyland reviews Simon Armitage's The Last Days of Troy at the Royal Exchange Manchester starring Lily Cole. Chris Harding looks at Japanese fears in Godzilla and The Wind Rises. Dr Philip Roscoe and Professor Geoffrey Wood on whether academia needs to change the focus of studies into financial systems. Plus Zoe Norridge discusses Deutsche Borse prize winner Richard Mosse and depictions of African countries affected by war.

Anne McElvoy looks at the benefits and challenges of cities pooling resources. Michael Wynne and Rachel De-lahay discuss their plays opening in Liverpool and Birmingham this week. Plus New Generation Thinkers Matthew Smith, from the University of Strathclyde, and Charlotte Blease, from University College Dublin, have been working on philosophy and psychiatric diagnosis, depression and ADHD.

David Henry Hwang tells Philip about his 2007 drama Yellow Face, reflecting life of Asian American and now showing in London; biographer Rachel Holmes and New Generation thinker, historian Emma Griffin explore Eleanor Marx's life.

As a musical version of The Water Babies opens Simon Heffer and New Generation Thinker Corin Throsby discuss the ideas of Charles Kingsley. Matthew Sweet talks about literary satire with novelist Edward St Aubyn. Plus we mark today's anniversary of Roger Bannister's 4 minute mile by talking to documentary maker Sally McLean about her current film project which profiles the Viennese running coach Franz Stampfl.

Samira Ahmed is joined by poets Paul Farley, Fiona Sampson and Clive Wilmer to discuss Thom Gunn, who died ten years ago. An interview with Michael Cunningham, about his new novel The Snow Queen. Plus historians Charlie Laderman and Umit Ungor discuss Turkish Armenian relations.

The BBC Radiophonic workshop,opened in 1958 with an aim to experiment and produce original music for various iconic BBC programmes. It was shut down 40 years later by Director General John Birt. In an edition recorded just as the Workshop prepare to release a new album, and tour the UK, Matthew Sweet brings together Radiophonic Workshop members Dick Mills, Paddy Kingsland, Roger Limb, Peter Howells, and Mark Ayres to reflect on the days and nights they spent in the workshop, coaxing ageing machines into otherworldly life, and pioneering electronic music.

Philip Dodd explores the sexual mores of eighteenth-century England talking to Faramerz Dabhoiwala of Exeter College, Oxford, Joanne Bailey of Oxford Brookes University, David Turner of Swansea University, author and broadcaster Hallie Rubenhold and Judith Hawley of Royal Holloway College. This download does contain some strong language.

Samira Ahmed discusses the ownership of street art with Mary McCarthy, Director of MM Contemporary Arts; Professor Lionel Bently, barrister and copyright expert on intellectual property, and street artist and gallery owner, Pure Evil. Ex-ITV CEO Stewart Purvis on the rise of indie news organisation Vice. Plus artist Jeremy Millar, film critic Chris Darke and Habda Rashid, Assistant Curator at The Whitechapel Gallery discuss French film maker Chris Marker's life and work.

In extended conversation with Philip Dodd, Dame Janet Suzman talks about her acting and directing and politics in her native South Africa - which goes to the polls on May 7th.

Philip Dodd explores 18th century attitudes to the law, crime and punishment with Professor Norman S Poser, Antonia Hodgson, Lucy Powell and Geoffrey Robertson QC.

In 1714 Bernard de Mandeville published his provocative Fable of the Bees, in which he explored the relationship between morality and economic wealth. As part of Radio 3's 18th Century season of programming, Matthew Sweet chairs a discussion with the Natural History Museum's Dr Erica McAlister, Southampton University economic historian Dr Helen Paul, finance journalist and presenter of BBC Radio 4's Money Box Paul Lewis and Stephen Davies, Education Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs. They reflect on Mandeville's fable and how it relates to economics and the organisation of society today.

Anne McElvoy talks to Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures Desmond Shawe-Taylor and historians Amanda Foreman, StellaTillyard and Jeremy Black about 18th century monarchy and power.

If Mrs Thatcher thought she was living again through Victorian England, we are now living through the eighteenth century. This special edition of Free Thinking explores London as the centre of the world then and now, financial bubbles bursting then and now, and the lust for consumption then and now, whether of bodies or bodices. Philip Dodd brings together the MP and author Kwasi Kwarteng, historians Helen Berry, Jerry White and AN Wilson and playwright April De Angelis for a discussion which is part of BBC Radio 3's eighteenth century season of programming.

Naomi Alderman, Geoff Mulgan and Lionel Bently join Philip Dodd to explore the ever-changing meaning of Originality. Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery, discusses the meaning of greatness in art in front of the new exhibition - Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice. And as Simon Stephens's new play Birdland opens, the playwright talks inspirations, death and originality.