The Essay: Recent Episodes
BBC Radio 3
Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.
In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a collection of poems. Jade Cuttle looks at the way her poems were described and asks what do we categorise as nature writing? Her essay considers the idea of "coining" and the work of a new generation of poets including Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Khairani Barokka, Kei Miller and a collection called Nature Matters edited by Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf.
Jade Cuttle is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio.She is studying for her PhD at the University of Cambridge, writing journalism and her first book called Silthood, which explores ancient connections between soil and self. She has also released an album of poem-songs called Algal Bloom.
You can find examples of Essays written for Radio 3 by Kei Miller and Elizabeth Jane Burnett on the programme website.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
What connects actors with baristas? In 1983, the American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild published a book called The Managed Heart which studied the working world of airline stewards. Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal’s essay considers what it means when a waiter smiles as they serve you and looks at some recent court cases over performing at work.
Dr Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. She is based at Queen Mary, University of London. Her research focuses on performance and work, including how drama based methods are implemented in across other sectors and industries. She is a member of the research collective Performance and Political Economy.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
The Japanese philosopher Yujin Nagasawa says the majority of people are what he calls ‘existential optimists’. What does this mean for ideas about evil and the creation of life? Jack Symes’ essay takes us through the views of thinkers including Schopenhauer, Stephen Law and Camus.
Jack Symes is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. He is based at Durham University. His books include Philosophers on Consciousness: Talking about the Mind and Talking about Existence and Defeating the Evil-God Challenge and he is working on a book about morality.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Having worked as a criminal and family barrister, Shona Minson has seen the effect on women and their children when a mother is sentenced to prison for committing a crime. Her essay considers the 1989 Children Act and what she sees as contradictory approaches to motherhood in British law.
Dr Shona Minson is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. She is based at the University of Oxford, has researched the sentencing of women and has written a book Maternal Sentencing and the Rights of the Child. She has also been appointed to the newly created government advisory body the Women’s Justice Board.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
If cinema is often associated with Hollywood or the European New Wave, since the 1970s activist-filmmakers around the world have been involving local people in telling their own stories. Co-creating films about land rights, food security, and pollution, these filmmakers pioneered what Becca Voelcker calls Land Cinema. In her essay, she shares examples made by Zhang Mengqi, Tsuchimoto Noriaki, Ogawa Productions and Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien
Dr Becca Voelcker is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. At Goldsmiths, University of London she lectures on art, film and visual culture, particularly in relation to politics and ecology; and has written for publications including Screen, Frieze and Sight & Sound.
Producer: Erin Downes
The would-be composer and philosopher Theodor Adorno played classical piano and came up with influential studies of authoritarianism, antisemitism and propaganda. He also wrote about the experience of listening to a radio voice. Jacob Downs's Essay for Radio 3 reflects on his insights and how far they remain relevant in a time of headphone listening, smart speakers and AI voices.
Dr Jacob Kingsbury Downs lectures in Music at the University of Oxford and is an honorary research fellow at the University of Sheffield. He also works as a musician and arranger working with composers including Erland Cooper and Anna Phoebe. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share academic research on radio.
Producer: Kirsty McQuire
How have the first hours and days after childbirth changed in the NHS? Before the NHS, a 1932 publication describing mothers resting after labour, referred to lying-in as ranging from two weeks to two months, but attitudes have altered. In 1950 the book National Baby was published by Sarah Campion. Emily Baughan has been reading it and looks at the differences between childbirth then, memories of her mother and her own experiences.
Dr Emily Baughan is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. She is a senior lecturer in 19th and 20th century British History at the University of Sheffield, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is working on a book, Love’s Labour, which is a history of childcare.
Producer in Salford: Ekene Akalawu
What do we get from a good book? With a greater diversity of stories on offer from publishers and as exam set texts, Janine Bradbury looks at the arguments which are made in favour of reading as a way of encouraging empathy and understanding or as a place to find ourselves. She asks whether this is the right way to think about the value of reading and her essay considers examples including Toni Morrison’s story Recitatif, Percival Everett's novel Erasure (which became the film American Fiction) and Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing, which Rebecca Hall has directed as a film.
Janine Bradbury is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. She is a senior lecturer in Contemporary Writing and Culture at the University of York, and her first poetry pamphlet Sometimes Real Love Comes Quick & Easy (Ignition Press) was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. Producer in Salford: Ekene Akalawu
In 1852, a book of philosophical enquiry was discovered in Ethiopia. But what if the Hatata Zera Yacob is a forgery? Does it matter, if the message is inspirational? Debates over its authorship rage and Jonathan Egid’s essay asks what these tell us about politics then and now.
Jonathan Egid is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. He’s been a Postgraduate Fellow at the British Society for the History of Philosophy and lectures at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is writing a book about the history of the Hatata Zera Yacob debate, and runs a podcast on philosophy in less-studied languages called Philosophising In ...
Producer: Luke Mulhall
From The Wizard of Oz to Madame Mao, Kirsty Sinclair Dootson’s essay explores the politics of making films in colour - specifically Technicolor - a process synonymous with American cinema that was the envy of political powers across Russia, Germany and China. The story takes us from Hollywood to Auschwitz to Instagram.
Dr Kirsty Sinclair Dootson is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. She is a lecturer in Film and Media at University College London, and author of a book The Rainbow’s Gravity.
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Irish poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders.' He devoted a lifetime to the art of poetry and won numerous poetry prizes.
He is recognised as a very fine love poet and in this episode of Michael Longley's Life of Poetry, first broadcast in 2024, he reads poems that address the gift of a decades-long love and marriage and the inevitability of ageing. After a lifetime dedicated to poetry, he says, 'I can't imagine that I would be alive now if I hadn't had poetry propelling me forward.'
He reads his poems The Pattern, The Linen Industry and Age from his collection Ash Keys: New Selected Poems (Cape Poetry), published to mark his 85th birthday on 27th July 2024, and Foam from his collection The Slain Birds.
Presenter: Olivia O'LearyProducer: Claire CunninghamExecutive Producer: Regan Hutchins
Michael Longley's Life of Poetry is a Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3.
The Irish poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders.' He devoted a lifetime to the art of poetry and won numerous poetry prizes.
In this episode of The Essay, first broadcast in 2024, he described his refuge from the city streets of Belfast in County Mayo, in one of the most remote and beautiful parts of the west of Ireland. He had been writing about its nature and landscape for over 50 years and it provided endless inspiration for poems. In more recent years he recognised the threat of climate change and he expresses the hope that younger generations will take greater care of the world.
He reads his poems The Leveret, Remembering Carrigskeewaun, Stonechat and The Comber from his collection Ash Keys: New Selected Poems (Cape Poetry), published to mark his 85th birthday on 27th July 2024, and Merlin from his collection The Slain Birds.
Presenter: Olivia O'LearyProducer: Claire CunninghamExecutive Producer: Regan Hutchins
Michael Longley's Life of Poetry is a Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3.
The Irish poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders.' He devoted a lifetime to the art of poetry and won numerous poetry prizes.
In 1968, violence erupted in Northern Ireland, the beginning of 30 years of the Troubles. In the third episode of this series of The Essay, first broadcast in 2024, he talked about writing poems that remembered some of those who were victims of the the violence and his most famous poem, Ceasefire, which looks to Homer's great epic poem The Iliad as it reflects on the cost of peace.
As well as Ceasefire, he reads his poems The Troubles, The Ice-cream Man, and All of these People from the collection Ash Keys: New Selected Poems (Cape Poetry), published to mark his 85th birthday on 27th July 2024.
Presenter: Olivia O'LearyProducer: Claire CunninghamExecutive Producer: Regan Hutchins
Michael Longley's Life of Poetry is a Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3.
The Irish poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders.' He devoted a lifetime to the art of poetry and won numerous poetry prizes.
In the second episode of this series of The Essay, first broadcast in 2024, he talked with presenter Olivia O'Leary about his World War 1 poems, many of which were inspired by his own father's experience of having fought in the war, although he rarely talked about it. Michael's poems link the Great War and the Northern Ireland Troubles.
He reads his poems Citation, Harmonica, The Sonnets and Wounds from the collection Ash Keys: New Selected Poems (Cape Poetry), published to mark his 85th birthday on 27th July 2024.
Presenter: Olivia O'LearyProducer: Claire CunninghamExecutive Producer: Regan Hutchins
Michael Longley's Life of Poetry is a Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3.
The poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025 at the age of 85, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders.' He devoted a lifetime to the art of poetry and won numerous poetry prizes.
In Episode 1 of this series of The Essay, first broadcast in 2024 and recorded to mark his 85th birthday, he talked with presenter Olivia O'Leary about his home town of Belfast and his love of jazz, saying that, 'Good poetry for me combines two things: meaning and melody.' He also loved the classics, which he studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he met his wife, Edna, a distinguished literary critic. He was one of a group of young poets that emerged from Northern Ireland in the 1960s and he describes the mutual support, rivalry and excitement of that time.
He reads his poems Elegy for Fats Waller and an extract from his poem River and Fountain from a new collection, Ash Keys: New Selected Poems (Cape Poetry), published to mark his 85th birthday on 27th July 2024. He also reads Bookshops from his collection Angel Hill and Poem from The Slain Birds.
Presenter: Olivia O'LearyProducer: Claire CunninghamExecutive Producer: Regan Hutchins
Michael Longley's Life of Poetry is a Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3.
'Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears...'
There is an idea that what Caliban is describing is gamelan music, and that Shakespeare had heard accounts of it as he wrote The Tempest from sailors who had recently returned from a voyage to the Spice Islands - Indonesia.
The village of Tihingan in Bali is full of noises because the chief occupation there is making gongs for gamelans, the wonderful gong orchestras of Bali and Java. Ade Mardiyati, a journalist who reports for the BBC's Indonesian service, visits Tihingan - Indonesia's Tin Pan Alley - the learn about the craft. Two crucial skills are involved; that of the smith who forges the gongs, and that , the tuner who works them to ensure they give the right note. In a sonically rich essay, recorded while these masters work, Ade explores the past, present and future of gamelan making, and music.
Presenter: Ade MardiyatiProducer: Julian May
Ochanomizu means 'tea water' because of its proximity to the Kanda River, which in the Edo period provided water for the Shogun's tea. Now it is a university area - Meiji University, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, and Juntendo University all have campuses in Ochanomizu. Phoebe Amoroso reports on the way teahouses have given way to musical instrument shops. There are more than 70 in Ochanomizu's 'Guitar Street' . But you can buy harmonicas and accordions, too. In such a competitive space shops survive by specialising. Almost all the instruments sold are western, but made with Japanese materials, craftsmanship and attention to detail.
Presenter: Phoebe AmorosoProducer: Julian May
The journalist Guy Hedgecoe, who covers Spain for the BBC, visits Felipe Conde's shop and workshop in Centro, Madrid. Conde is the fourth generation of his family to make classical and flamenco guitars. Many of the great flamenco musicians - Moraito, Paco de Lucia, Tomatito - have played Conde guitars, as have artists from other traditions - Leonard Cohen, Lenny Kravitz, Cat Stevens. And Paco de Lucia gave one to Michael Jackson. Guy meet Antonio Gonzalez, one of Conde's customers, who tell him what qualities he is looking for - and plays. And he watches while Felipe Conde works on a new instrument. Guy explores the state of the craft of making, the art of playing and the place of the classical guitar and flamenco music in Spain, and around the world, today.
Presenter: Guy HedgecoeProducer: Julian May
Galip Dede Street in Istanbul used to be famous for its antique, philatelic and book shops. But over the past 30 years more and more music shops have opened and now the street has more than 30. Esra Yalcinalp talks to the shopkeepers who sell instruments of all kinds, all the orchestral instruments. Here, too, she finds musicians who might buy a bağlama or saz, like a mandolin with a very long neck, and a kemençe or lyra, a bowed instrument, used in Ottoman classical and Turkish folk music. She gets a demonstration of the different rhythms a master can play on the darbuka, the goblet shaped drum used in Turkish classical music. She meets, too, a French musician seeking strings for her Syrian oud. Can she find these in Galip Dede? Of course. No problem.
There is a problem, though - tourism. It's driving up rents and driving out specialist music shops, which are replaced by hotels and T shirt shops. Presenter: Esra YalcinalpProducer: Julian May
The original Tin Pan Alley was in Fifth and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, New York, where music publishers set up shop in the late 19th century, attracting songwriters and coming to dominate American popular music. Since then Tin Pan Alley has come to mean a quarter where there are music shops and where musicians gather. Cities all over the globe have Tin Pan Alleys of their own. For instance, if you wanted to buy a bass guitar in London, you'd head to the UK's Tin Pan Alley, Denmark Street.
In this week's series of the Essay BBC correspondents from Madrid to Tokyo explore the Tin Pan Alleys of their towns, talking to musicians trying out the instruments before they buy, and to the shopkeepers selling them. They explore the state of the musical culture, and culture more generally, of the countries they are reporting from.
The series begins in Beijing where Stephen McDonell visits Xinjiekou Street, where the shops sell Chinese traditional instruments: the erhu, a two string fiddle; the pipa, a pear shaped lute; the guzheng, a zither...and several others. He discovers that there is renewed enthusiasm for them and their music, and meets some musicians playing in a tunnel, not for the acoustic but because, in an odd reversal of the norm, if they play in the street young people object to the noise and shop them to the cops. Presenter: Stephen McDonellProducer: Julian May
Scotland has been blessed with some of the most exciting of gemstones, but knowing where to find them is the secret.
Kenneth Steven was given a piece of amber when he was a child, found supposedly on Iona. This is the story of amber and where it actually comes from.
Kenneth tells the story of amber in Scotland and in Ireland. Amber necklaces from Ireland are somewhere in the region of three thousand years old. Those necklaces are usually found in bogland hoards and in caves. Perhaps they were kept there for safety, or as offerings to the river or to water deities. It’s surely a sign of the value that was ascribed to them that these amber relics are most often found close to gold. This would suggest that amber was a status symbol for the wealthy and powerful.
Presenter Kenneth StevenProducer Mark Rickards
A Whistledown Scotland production
The first stone Kenneth Steven began collecting in childhood was serpentine from the beaches of the island of Iona. Here he tells the story of the search for the finest gems.
It was Kenneth's mother who’d taught him to search for serpentine. She explained to him the difference between these waxy, much softer pebbles and stones made of marble. Those are duller; they don’t polish the same, and once out of water they have a drabness about them. You can tell a piece of serpentine because as soon as it’s absorbed the oils from your hand it’s polished, glimmering.
Presenter Kenneth StevenProducer Mark Rickards
A Whistledown Scotland production
The great Victorian collector of minerals Matthew Heddle mentions two places in particular for the finding of aquamarine in Scotland, one the island of Arran and the other a mountain in the Cairngorms. But locating these gems is another story.
The Cairngorm mountains are a kind of fortress. There is nowhere else like them in Scotland. You enter their world from one side or another and thereafter are inside them until you withdraw once more. You become aware of other noises than the ones that dominate our days: you hear streams, the breeze lifting the pine trees, the wind in the high hills once you have climbed into them. It’s an elemental place: pure and to all intents and purposes undamaged, undisturbed.
Kenneth Steven explores the history of this semi-precious stone and reflects in poetry on his finds.
Presenter Kenneth StevenProducer Mark Rickards
A Whistledown Scotland production
Scotland has been blessed with some of the most exciting of gemstones, but knowing where to find them is the secret. A rare edition of 'Scottish Gem Stones' by W J McCallien led Kenneth to the discovery of the riches to be found on Scotland's mountains and shores.
The mineralogist Matthew Heddle, the great 19th century collector of Scottish gemstones. was particularly fond of agates. The wonderful thing about banded agate is that each one is unique; you’ll never know from looking at the outside what the heart of it may reveal. The counties of Angus and Fife have fabulous banded agates on the shores and in the fields, but finding them is about more than just luck.
Kenneth Steven goes in search of the precious stones and reflects on his finds in poetry.
Presenter Kenneth StevenProducer Mark Rickards
A Whistledown Scotland production
Scotland has been blessed with some of the most exciting of gemstones, but knowing where to find them is the secret. A rare edition of 'Scottish Gem Stones' by W J McCallien led Kenneth to the discovery of the riches to be found on Scotland's mountains and shores.
In the first episode, Kenneth tells the story of Scotland's short-lived gold rush in 1869, when 600 gold miners made their way to Sutherland in the hope of a major find.
Kenneth searches for the elusive treasure himself, and reflects on his experiences in poetry.
Presenter Kenneth StevenProducer Mark Rickards
A Whistledown Scotland Production
Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stories that have fooled and perplexed some of the greatest experts. In an age of misinformation, when faking it has never been more prevalent, the series unravels the stories of some of the most brazen and confounding composer controversies. What is the appeal of engineering a hoax? And why do we fall for them so easily? It’s a journey that raises questions about scholarship, authenticity and our faith in expert opinion.
Mamoru Samuragochi became famous in the 2000s as the ‘Japanese Beethoven’ – a deaf composer whose music touched millions of classical fans and crossed over to a mainstream audience by being used in computer games. But was Samuragochi actually deaf and was he even composing his own works? In his last essay in the series, Phil considers the impact of hoaxes on our trust in authenticity and celebrity.
Written and presented by Phil HebblethwaiteProducer: Jo GlanvilleEditor: Joanne RowntreeResearcher: Heather DempseyStudio Engineer: Dan King A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4
Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stories that have fooled and perplexed some of the greatest experts. In an age of misinformation, when faking it has never been more prevalent, the series unravels the stories of some of the most brazen and confounding composer controversies. What is the appeal of engineering a hoax? And why do we fall for them so easily? It’s a journey that raises questions about scholarship, authenticity and our faith in expert opinion.
More than 20 years ago, critics began to acclaim the recordings of the pianist Joyce Hatto. One described her as the greatest living pianist. When the fraud was later revealed, it turned out to be one of the greatest instances of plagiarism in the history of the record industry. Phil explores the story of a digital deception.
Written and presented by Phil HebblethwaiteProducer: Jo GlanvilleEditor: Joanne RowntreeResearcher: Heather DempseyStudio Engineer: Dan King
With thanks to Nicholas Cook and Jessica Duchen
A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4
Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stories that have fooled and perplexed some of the greatest experts. In an age of misinformation, when faking it has never been more prevalent, the series unravels the stories of some of the most brazen and confounding composer controversies. What is the appeal of engineering a hoax? And why do we fall for them so easily? It’s a journey that raises questions about scholarship, authenticity and our faith in expert opinion.
Thirty years ago, the classical music world hailed the discovery of six lost Haydn sonatas. Only it soon turned out that they probably weren’t written by Haydn at all, and the finger of suspicion was pointed at an obscure German musician. In this third essay of the series, Phil explores the fallout from the scandal. Can a work of art still have value if it's not authentic?
Written and presented by Phil HebblethwaiteProducer: Jo GlanvilleEditor: Joanne RowntreeResearcher: Heather DempseyStudio Engineer: Dan King
With thanks to Michael Beckerman and Frederick Reece
A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4
Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stories that have fooled and perplexed some of the greatest experts. In an age of misinformation, when faking it has never been more prevalent, the series unravels the stories of some of the most brazen and confounding composer controversies. What is the appeal of engineering a hoax? And why do we fall for them so easily? It’s a journey that raises questions about scholarship, authenticity and our faith in expert opinion.
The second essay explores the story of one of the most widely recognised pieces in classical music - Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor. But was Albinoni even involved with the composition of the work? Phil gets to the bottom of a story that has perplexed classical scholars for years and asks how much authenticity actually matters.
Written and presented by Phil HebblethwaiteProducer: Jo GlanvilleEditor: Joanne RowntreeResearcher: Heather DempseyStudio Engineer: Dan King
With thanks to Michael Talbot, Donald Greig and Frederick Reece
A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4
Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stories that have fooled and perplexed some of the greatest experts. In an age of misinformation, when faking it has never been more prevalent, the series unravels the stories of some of the most brazen and confounding composer controversies. What is the appeal of engineering a hoax? And why do we fall for them so easily? It’s a journey that raises questions about scholarship, authenticity and our faith in expert opinion.
In the first essay, Phil tells the story of Fritz Kreisler - the virtuoso violinist who passed his own works off as compositions by forgotten Baroque composers. It took 30 years before the hoax was revealed. How did Kreisler manage to fool so many people for so long?
Written and presented by Phil HebblethwaiteProducer: Jo GlanvilleEditor: Joanne RowntreeResearcher: Heather DempseyStudio Engineer: Dan King A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4
Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and reconsider their relationship with their instruments.
We all know that listening to music can have a positive impact on wellbeing and mental health. But what about the performer? The truth is, for anyone wanting to turn professional, this is a highly competitive and pressurised environment often driven in part by fear and anxiety. It's a problem that can have a disproportionate effect on young people - which is why trumpeter Rebecca Toal and cellist Hattie Butterworth started their podcast, Things Musicians Don't Talk About, to try to break the taboo of not acknowledging the difficulties with mental illness that many musicians face. They talk to Kate about their personal experience of 'the system' for training musicians that can so easily break down, often resulting in crippling anxiety and burn-out. Obsessive behaviour and eating disorders are not uncommon as people try to gain some control over the endless cycle of practice and performance. By creating the podcast, Rebecca and Hattie have found a creative way to use their experiences to forge a new and less damaging path for themselves, but also to help others by sharing musicians' experiences honestly.
Presenter: Kate KennedyProducer: Erika WrightProduction Coordinator: Elisabeth TuohyExecutive Producer: Rami TzabarHealing Musicians is a TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3
Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and rethink their lives.
As principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic for three decades, Ludwig Quandt performed with conductors Claudio Abbado and Sir Simon Rattle until an injury unrelated to performing nearly ended his career. He reveals what being forced to confront silence means for a musician's relationship with their instrument and the innovative solution he found on the other side of the world from an unlikely source.
Presenter: Kate KennedyProducer: Erika WrightProduction Coordinator: Elisabeth TuohyExecutive Producer: Rami TzabarHealing Musicians is a TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3
Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and rethink their lives. What does being forced to fall silent mean for a musician's relationship with their instrument?
Robin Graham reached her dream as the first woman to earn a principal French horn position in a major American orchestra by audition. She shares her story of how painful injury caused her to leave in 2003 and the grief at being unable to play in the centre of a big orchestral sound.
Presenter: Kate KennedyProducer: Erika WrightProduction Coordinator: Elisabeth TuohyExecutive Producer: Rami TzabarHealing Musicians is a TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3
Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and rethink their lives. What does this mean for a musician's relationship with their instrument?
Aged 11, Stephen Marquiss was labelled an exemplary piano scholar. Gaining a music specialist place in 1990 Stephen promptly attained the highest ABRSM exam mark in the country and reached the televised semi-final of BBC Young Musicians. But then injury forced him to pull out. At 18, his career was all but over, having struggled with recurring RSI, musculo-skeletal issues, which destroyed his confidence and mental health. Ironically, this crisis forced him to address fundamental aspects of how piano is taught and played - and now at 45, Stephen has his own school of playing called Piano Portals, which seeks to rewrite how practice is approached. Kate takes him back to his practice rooms, to help us understand the intensity and the fear of failure that drove him to injury and we learn how his new approach to playing unfolded.
Presenter: Kate KennedyProducer: Erika WrightProduction Coordinator: Elisabeth TuohyExecutive Producer: Rami TzabarHealing Musicians is a TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3
Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and reshape their lives. What does being forced to fall silent mean for a musician's relationship with their instrument?
"My name is Julian Lloyd Webber and I am an ex-cellist". The internationally renowned performer, Julian Lloyd Webber talks for the first time in detail to Kate about the moment he realised his 40-year career could be over mid-recital: "Suddenly I lost power in my right arm - I thought I was going to drop the bow. I had never experienced anything like it - I didn't know what was wrong or what to do. I was genuinely frightened". Julian shares the sense of bereavement he felt after his prestigious career of four decades ended due to a herniated disc in his neck.
Over the next few weeks, Julian tried to pretend everything was normal. His manager was calling him with engagements he had always wanted to undertake, such as a performance of Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto in Moscow. But the wear and tear of Julian's performing career on his body was too much - he learned that the herniated disc was pressing on a nerve which was causing a loss of power in his arm. Doctors told him that he could have an operation, but with little guarantee of success, and with high risks attached. He had a young family at the time, so chose to sacrifice the cello.
He has never played since. Julian and Jiaxin, his wife and fellow cellist, reflect on the last fateful concert they played together and how they've found positives in silence.
Presenter: Kate KennedyProducer: Erika WrightProduction Coordinator: Elisabeth TuohyExecutive Producer: Rami TzabarHealing Musicians is a TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3
"Les petites girls Anglaises" was the nickname given by a French journalist to the elaborately costumed and rhythmic Tiller Girls troupe. Adjoa Osei is a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and a former performer herself, and she's been exploring the complexities involved in being a dancing girl in 1930s Paris, appearing on stage alongside the likes of Josephine Baker and French nude dancers. Her essay focuses on the lives of Marjorie Rowland and Mignon Harman.You can find another Radio 3 Essay building on Adjoa's research as a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker called A Brazilian Soprano in Jazz-Age Paris available on BBC Sounds.
Producer: Katy Hickman
1574, and a baby girl on board a ship fleeing from France, arrives in London. Esther Inglis went on to become a successful Tudor bookmaker and artist and Eleanor Chan argues that the inclusion of psalm music in the self portraits created by Inglis is a coded way of symbolising belonging at a time of religious strife. The essay draws on research done by New Generation Thinker Eleanor Chan, who has been working as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Manchester and the Warburg Institute.
Work by Esther Inglis is included in the exhibition Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520–1920 which runs at Tate Britain until October 13th 2024
You can hear more about Tudor music and art in a Free Thinking episode called a Lively Tudor World which features Eleanor Chan and Christina Faraday. It's available on BBC Sounds. You can also find Eleanor Chan's Essay about another Tudor composer - The discordant tale of Thomas Weelkes.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
"Millons be Free" is a Jacobin song which originally celebrated the idea of the French Revolution, whose tune became the American national anthem. Oskar Jensen sings us the melody and tells us a story involving Alexander Hamilton, the advocate of women's rights Mary Wollstonecraft, Haydn and Hummel at a drinking society, a Liverpool lawyer William Roscoe and William Pirsson, a Chelmsford bookseller who immigrated to the USA.
Oskar Jensen is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, based at Newcastle University working on a project called The Invention of Pop Music: Mainstream Song, Class, and Culture, 1520–2020. His books include Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth-Century London and he also worked on The Subversive Voice research project. You can find more from his research on BBC Sounds in episodes of the Arts & Ideas podcast called Victorian Streets, Napoleon in Fact and Fiction and Eliza Flower and non-conformist thinking.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
How musician Robert Hales and a witty song helped Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I's counsellor, win back the Queen's favour. Documents show us that Cecil supported many musicians, paid for a full-time consort, and had to temporarily dismiss one player for "lewdness". New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday tells the story and explores what we know about the role of music at the Tudor court.
Christina Faraday is a Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and is the author of the book Tudor Liveliness: Vivid Art in Post-Reformation England. You can hear her discussing Tudor history in several Essays and episodes of Free Thinking available as Arts & Ideas podcasts.
Producer: Natalia Fernandez
Teresa del Riego's work was a staple of early Prom seasons but the anthem she premiered for the suffrage movement in 1911, at the Criterion restaurant Piccadilly Circus, which had 1,000 copies of the song distributed around the country, has not been heard recently. Naomi Paxton shares her research into the compositions of del Riego (1876-1968) and the music making of the suffrage circle. Singer Lucy Stevens performs The Awakening (with lyrics by American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox) alongside Elizabeth Marcus at the piano.
Naomi Paxton is a BBC/Arts and Humanities Research Council New Generation Thinker on the scheme which helps early career academics share research on radio. You can find her more of her work on suffragette history as Arts & Ideas podcasts, Sunday features and Essays on BBC Sounds.
Lucy Stevens and Elizabeth Marcus have recorded Songs and Ballads by Dame Ethel Smyth and rehearsed this del Riego song especially for The Essay recording.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.
The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this final essay recounts the night of "Beckstival" and how this joyous night tinged with sadness made her reassess the scale and nature of her work.
"More depth, less breadth. More local, less scattered. More conversational, less performative. And always, always more collaborative and connective."
Written and Presented by Karine PolwartProducer by Peter McManusMixed by Sean Mullervy
In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.
The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. As the evening of the gig approaches Karine begins to understand how her discussions with Al are opening up conversations not just with her but also with his family.
Written and Presented by Karine PolwartProducer by Peter McManusMixed by Sean Mullervy
In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award-winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.
The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this essay Karine reflects on the strange purposelessness she felt at the time, with no one to play for or with what use was she? The offer of to play in Al's back garden became as much a gift to her as him.
Written and Presented by Karine PolwartProducer by Peter McManusMixed by Sean Mullervy
In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.
The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this essay Karine considers the power of song to transport us to a place and time conjuring up important moments in our lives.
Written and Presented by Karine PolwartProducer by Peter McManusMixed by Sean Mullervy
The multi-award-winning folksinger, songwriter and storyteller, Karine Polwart, crafts an elegy in song for Al Beck, a local legend of rural East Lothian.
The songs - were Al's choices for ‘Beckstival' a back garden celebration co-created in the depth of lockdown during June 2020, just weeks before Al's death from cancer. The music ranged from 60s psychedelia and pop classics to a traditional pipe march.
The tender and witty email correspondence between the two gives voice to Al himself, and underpins Karine's week-long meditation on the role that song plays in each of our stories of living and dying - as lullaby and love letter, memory marker and memorial.
In this first essay Karine describes making the offer of the private gig and being overwhelmed by Al's response, starting what would be remarkable collaboration for them both.
Written and Presented by Karine PolwartProducer by Peter McManusMixed by Sean Mullervy
A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for music, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn players to punchy performance artists, all of the essayists consider music from a deaf perspective with illuminating results.
From her childhood immersed in music to her early career as a professional violinist, Elizabeth Elliott's passion for classical music endured even as she became deaf. Despite the shock of losing her hearing, she muses on how she found solace in teaching and performing in smaller groups, before concentrating on bringing up her young family.
In middle age, she had a cochlear implant fitted, and she describes how this felt - reclaiming her ability to hear note by musical note. Filling us all in with a very different way to listen, Elizabeth details how through careful trial and error she pieces together a piano piece and drills herself to perform it to a high standard. She shares with us how it felt to once again be able to perform music publicly, through dedication and technology.
A Different Way to Listen is produced by Sophie Allen and Emma Glassar with Mark Rickards as Executive Producer. It is a Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3. A British Sign Language version was filmed, edited and subtitled by Fifi Garfield.
A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for musicals, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn players to punchy performance artists, all of the essayists consider music from a deaf perspective with illuminating results.
Professional music sign language performer Paul Whittaker OBE explains how he has carved out a unique space in the classical musical world by being a pioneer in the field of sign language performance. Despite initial scepticism, he pursued a career in music starting with a degree from Oxford, before founding 'Music and the Deaf' to promote musical accessibility. With meticulous preparation and passion, Paul talks us through how he translates complex musical pieces into expressive sign language, capturing the essence of each composition. He details how he makes his sign language performance ‘sing’ in genres stretching from iconic musicals to Handel’s Messiah and how he hopes his interpretations enhance the audience's understanding and enjoyment, bridging the gap between deaf and hearing communities.
A Different Way to Listen is produced by Sophie Allen and Emma Glassar with Mark Rickards as Executive Producer. It is a Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3. A British Sign Language version was filmed, edited and subtitled by Fifi Garfield.
A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for musicals, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn players to punchy performance artists, all of the essayists consider music from a deaf perspective with illuminating results.
Chisato Minamimura shares her journey of exploring sound and music. Growing up in Japan before later moving to the UK, Chisato lost her hearing at seven months, yet despite this she learned the piano - becoming the star pupil.
Inspired by artists like John Cage and Tōru Takemitsu, Chisato delves into the concept of sound and music from a deaf perspective. She details how she began creating visual scores based on mathematical algorithms, turning dancers into her instruments. And she explains how she innovates new ways to interact with sound, such as feeling vibrations with her teeth or using Woojer strap to create multi-sensory experiences.
Throughout her work, she invites audiences to explore the rich tapestry of sound and music through a deaf lens, opening up new possibilities for artistic expression. Dreaming of experiencing phenomena like whale songs first hand, Chisato imagines translating these experiences into tactile vibrations, further expanding her exploration of sound.
A Different Way to Listen is produced by Sophie Allen and Emma Glassar with Mark Rickards as Executive Producer. It is a Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3. A British Sign Language version was filmed, edited and subtitled by Fifi Garfield.
A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for musicals, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn players to punchy performance artists, all of the essayists consider music from a deaf perspective with illuminating results.
Horn and Wagner tuba player Nigel Braithwaite looks back at his musical life and gives a humorous take on his time as a semi-professional musician. How did he continue to play in the face of mitochondrial disease which robbed him of his ability to hear the very low notes in which he specialised as a player? How did traumatic brain injury affect his ability to find his place in an orchestral setting? What else could possibly go wrong? A semi-professional musician throughout his whole life, he tackles his travails with honesty and humour, musing on what it takes to get through life’s challenges and how key musical tracks along with his family and friends have got him safely through.
A Different Way to Listen is produced by Sophie Allen and Emma Glassar with Mark Rickards as Executive Producer. It is a Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3. A British Sign Language version was filmed, edited and subtitled by Fifi Garfield.
A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for music, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn players to punchy performance artists, all of the essayists consider music from a deaf perspective with illuminating results.
Ruth Montgomery is a profoundly deaf professional flautist and flute teacher who grew up the only deaf person at home. In her essay she details the challenges of her early years, and how being introduced to the flute at her secondary school; a school for deaf children, led to her becoming a professional musician and music educator. She describes the hurdles she faced to be taken seriously, and the dedication that this fostered in her to help other deaf children gain musical appreciation and skills as a vital part of life. Ultimately Ruth has created her own musical education programme, as a way of inspiring deaf children, blending art and music as a way to address the huge gaps she discovered in this field. A Different Way to Listen is produced by Sophie Allen and Emma Glassar with Mark Rickards as Executive Producer. It is a Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3. A British Sign Language version was filmed, edited and subtitled by Fifi Garfield.
During his less than stellar acting career Michael Goldfarb spent a lot of time watching from the wings waiting to go on for his single scene. In this series, he talks about the plays he appeared in, their histories, and the lives of the actors who performed them.
In this essay, he's understudying in K2: a play about two climbers trapped on an ice ledge, having fallen on their way down from the summit of the mountain. It wasn't a very good play but had an amazing set with the capacity for near cinematic feats of climbing and falling.
The play made it to Broadway for a brief Tony-winning run and Michael talks about performing in a show where a huge Styrofoam mountain was the star and the jostling for supremacy among actors, directors and set designers.
Preparation for a performance on stage goes beyond just memorising lines, learning blocking and hoping it will be alright on the night. A diligent actor studies the history of the period of the play, learns about the intentions of the playwright, and absorbs from older colleagues knowledge of how the play has been done in the past.
In his less than stellar career as an actor, Michael Goldfarb went through this process many times.
In this essay, Michael recalls his admiration for John Gielgud. He remembers The Motive and the Cue, the play about John Gielgud directing Richard Burton in Hamlet. He also had a chance meeting with the legendary actor at the stage door of the Apollo theatre in London when Gielgud was starring in David Storey's 'Home'.
Preparation for a performance on stage goes beyond just memorising lines, learning blocking and hoping it will be alright on the night. A diligent actor studies the history of the period of the play, learns about the intentions of the playwright, and absorbs from older colleagues knowledge of how the play has been done in the past.
In his less than stellar career as an actor, Michael Goldfarb went through this process many times.
In this episode, it's the story of The Count of Monte Cristo, as performed by James O'Neill, father of playwright Eugene O'Neill. It was the play that made him rich and his family miserable, as depicted in Long Day's Journey Into Night. Nearly fifty years ago, it was revived by the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre, located on the Bowery in New York. The Cocteau was the only rotating rep theatre in New York and Michael Goldfarb was part of the company.
Preparation for a performance on stage goes beyond just memorising lines, learning blocking and hoping it will be alright on the night. A diligent actor studies the history of the period of the play, learns about the intentions of the playwright, and absorbs from older colleagues knowledge of how the play has been done in the past.
In his less than stellar career as an actor, Michael Goldfarb went through this process many times.
In this essay, he appears in Maxim Gorki's Summerfolk, a play about the Russian upper-middle classes at their summer homes, as their country teeters on the brink of revolutionary catastrophe. He remembers Russian theatre, theatrical friendships and after-show drinking.
Preparation for a performance on stage goes beyond just memorising lines, learning blocking and hoping it will be alright on the night. A diligent actor studies the history of the period of the play, learns about the intentions of the playwright, and absorbs from older colleagues knowledge of how the play has been done in the past.
In his less than stellar career as an actor, Michael Goldfarb went through this process many times. He recalls meeting John Gielgud at the theatre door and understudying in a play where a huge Styrofoam mountain was the star of the show.
In this essay: theatrical superstition says you shouldn’t mention the play Macbeth, by name. But how else to speak of the play on which Michael finally got his equity card?
Gold sequins, silk and vibrant colour threads might not be what you expect to find in a sampler stitched by a Quaker girl in the seventeenth century. New Generation Thinker Isabella Rosner has studied examples of embroidered nutmegs and decorated shell shadow boxes found in London and Philadelphia which present a more complicated picture of Quaker attitudes and the decorated objects they created as part of a girl's education.
Dr Isabella Rosner is a textile historian and curator at the Royal School of Needlework on the New Generation Thinker scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to highlight new research. You can hear more from her in Free Thinking episodes called Stitching stories and A lively Tudor world
Producer: Ruth Watts
Who's Holding the Baby? was the title of an exhibition organised to highlight a lack of childcare provision in East London in the 1970s. Was this feminist art? Bobby Baker, Sonia Boyce, Rita Keegan and members of the photography collective Hackney Flashers are some of the artists who've been taking part in an oral history project with New Generation Thinker Ana Baeza Ruiz. Her essay presents some of their reflections on what it means to make art and call yourself a feminist.
Dr Ana Baeza Ruiz is the Research Associate for the project Feminist Art Making Histories (FAMH) at Loughborough University and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to showcase new research into the humanities. You can hear her in Free Thinking episodes on Portraits and Women, art and activism available as an Arts & Ideas podcast.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Canvey Island: cradle of innovation for gas heating and home to music makers Dr Feelgood, who drew inspiration from the Mississippi Delta. New Generation Thinker Sam Johnson-Schlee is an author and geographer based at London South Bank University. His essay remembers the influence of Parker Morris standards on heating in the home, songs written by Wilko Johnson and the impact of central heating on teenage bedrooms, record listening and playing instruments.
Producer: Julian Siddle
You can hear more from Sam in Free Thinking episodes exploring Dust and Sound, Conflict and Central HeatingNew Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio
Gold sequins, silk and vibrant colour threads might not be what you expect to find in a sampler stitched by a Quaker girl in the seventeenth century. New Generation Thinker Isabella Rosner has studied examples of embroidered nutmegs and decorated shell shadow boxes found in London and Philadelphia which present a more complicated picture of Quaker attitudes and the decorated objects they created as part of a girl's education.
Dr Isabella Rosner is a textile historian and curator at the Royal School of Needlework on the New Generation Thinker scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to highlight new research. You can hear more from her in Free Thinking episodes called Stitching stories and A lively Tudor world
Producer: Ruth Watts
A 1660s board game made by a Jesuit missionary sent to the Mohawk Valley in North America is the subject of New Generation Thinker Gemma Tidman's essay. This race game, a little like Snakes and Ladders, depicts the path of a Christian life and afterlife. Gemma explores what the game tells us about how powerful people have long turned to play, images, and other persuasive means to secure converts and colonial subjects. Dr Gemma Tidman is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen Mary University London and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio. You can hear more from her in Free Thinking discussions about Game-playing, and Sneezing, smells and noses.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The A13 runs from the City of London past Tilbury Docks and the site of the Dagenham Ford factory to Benfleet and the Wat Tyler Country Park. As he travels along it, talking to residents about their ideas of community and change, New Generation Thinker Dan Taylor reflects on the history of the area and different versions of hopes for the future.
Dr Dan Taylor lectures in social and political thought at the Open University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to share insights from academic research on radio. You can hear him in Free Thinking discussions about Essex, and discussing medieval bestiaries in Beast and Animals. He is also the author of a book Island Story: Journeys Through Unfamiliar Britain and you can hear him in a Free Thinking episode discussing the county Essex.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
From 1922, between 10-30,000 women and girls are thought to have been incarcerated at the Magdalene laundries which operated in Ireland. New Generation Thinker Louise Brangan has been reading the testimonies of many of the girls who survived these institutions. As the Irish state tries to come to terms with this history, how should it be spoken about? Is a language of legal blame and guilt enough to make sense of this history?
Dr Louise Brangan is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Strathclyde and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (part of UKRI) to put research on radio. You can find her contributing to Free Thinking discussion episodes looking at Ireland's hidden histories and secret stories
Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy
Two years living at sea taught New Generation Thinker Kerry McInerney values which she wants to apply to the development of AI. Her Essay explores the "sustainable AI" movement and looks at visions of the future in novels including Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl. Dr McInerney is a Research Associate at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to put academic research on radio.
Producer: Julian Siddle
You can hear more from Kerry in Free Thinking and New Thinking episodes available as Arts & Ideas podcasts called AI, feminism, human/machines and Yellowface, AI and Asian stereotypes.
Why do babies say "daddy" earlier and what might it mean when a baby does call for "mum" or "anne"? Dr Rebecca Woods, from Newcastle University, calls upon her training in linguistics and observations from her own home to trace the way children’s experiences shape their first words and the names they use for their parents.
Rebecca Woods is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put academic research on radio.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can hear more from Rebecca Woods in a Free Thinking discussion about childhood and play when Young V&A opened - it's available from the programme website and as an Arts & Ideas podcast
Canvey Island: cradle of innovation for gas heating and home to music makers Dr Feelgood, who drew inspiration from the Mississippi Delta. New Generation Thinker Sam Johnson-Schlee is an author and geographer based at London South Bank University. His essay remembers the influence of Parker Morris standards on heating in the home, songs written by Wilko Johnson and the impact of central heating on teenage record listening and playing instruments.
Producer: Julian Siddle
You can hear more from Sam in Free Thinking episodes exploring Dust and Sound, Conflict and Central HeatingNew Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio
Two years living at sea taught New Generation Thinker Kerry McInerney values which she wants to apply to the development of AI. Her Essay explores the "sustainable AI" movement and looks at visions of the future in novels including Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl. Dr McInerney is a Research Associate at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to put academic research on radio.
Producer: Julian Siddle
You can hear more from Kerry in Free Thinking and New Thinking episodes available as Arts & Ideas podcasts called AI, feminism, human/machines and Yellowface, AI and Asian stereotypes
Looking at the way human and animal bodies were treated in death and used in rituals prompts New Generation Thinker and archaeologist Marianne Hem Eriksen, from the University of Leicester, to ask questions about the way humans, animals and spirit worlds were understood. Her Essay shares stories from a research project called Body-Politics’: presenting worlds where elite men could shape-shift into animals — and some people’s bones ended up in rubbish pits.
This Essay is part of the BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers scheme which puts academic research on radio.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can hear Marianne discussing insights from her research in episodes of Free Thinking called The Kitchen and in one broadcasting next week looking at Attitudes towards death.
Amalia Holst's defence of female education, published in 1802, was the first work by a woman in Germany to challenge the major philosophers of the age, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Unlike Mary Wollstonecraft writing in England, Holst failed to make headway with her arguments. New Generation Thinker Andrew Cooper teaches in the philosophy department at the University of Warwick. His essay explores the publishing of Holst's book On The Vocation of Woman to Higher Intellectual Education.
Andrew Cooper is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can hear more from Andrew in a Free Thinking discussion about The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe available as an Arts & Ideas podcast and on BBC Sounds.
Why do babies say "daddy" earlier and what might it mean when a baby does call for "mum" or "anne"? Dr Rebecca Woods, from Newcastle University, calls upon her training in linguistics and observations from her own home to trace the way children’s experiences shape their first words and the names they use for their parents.
Rebecca Woods is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put academic research on radio.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can hear more from Rebecca Woods in a Free Thinking discussion about childhood and play when Young V&A opened - it's available from the programme website and as an Arts & Ideas podcast
Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was ‘in her blood’... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk’s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle’s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini’s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents’ favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising.
The acts that have always most fascinated her are those ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda’s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s – 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship.
Essay 5: How Did They Do That? Magic and Mesmerism
In this final essay, Amanda explores the world of magicians and hypnotists - the blurred line between acts of illusion and the apparently paranormal, the moment when the solidity of our logical, rational narrative of the world starts to fall away and we enter a state of bewilderment. The essay springs from Amanda’s memories of her own childhood fascination with magic and her desire for it to be ‘real’, despite her terror of psychic phenomena - a fascination that is still with her today and continues to inform her writing. “That’s entertainment??” asks the essay, as it ponders the connections between amusement, thrill, escapism and fear.
Writer and reader, Amanda DaltonProducer, Polly ThomasExec Producer, Eloise Whitmore
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3.
BiogAmanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection – Fantastic Voyage – is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!
Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was ‘in her blood’... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk’s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle’s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini’s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents’ favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising.
The acts that have always most fascinated her are those ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda’s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s – 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship.
Essay 4: Girls! Girls! Girls! Women in Variety
For today’s essay, Amanda turns her attention to female variety acts including those frequently unnamed, scantily clad ‘glamorous assistants.’ Built around the rediscovery of her mum’s 1920s and 30s scrapbook which charts her ventures into the world of entertainment, Amanda considers the role and frequently disturbing representation of women in old Variety Theatre, and her own mum’s journey through this landscape.
Writer and reader, Amanda DaltonProducer, Polly ThomasExec Producer, Eloise Whitmore
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3.
BiogAmanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection – Fantastic Voyage – is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!
Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was ‘in her blood’... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk’s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle’s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini’s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents’ favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising.
The acts that have always most fascinated her are those ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda’s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s – 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship.
Essay 3: It's The Animal In Me: Animal Acts in Variety Theatre
In this third essay of the series Amanda looks not only to the dancing dogs, disappearing doves and rabbits pulled from hats, but to the wild animal acts that at one time were a regular feature of Variety. A lifelong animal lover who grew up in a houseful of pets, she recalls her uneasy childhood experiences of watching animals on stage – something she loved and hated in equal measure - and asks what is the appeal of watching animals ‘perform’ and what can the lens of Variety reveal of our attitudes to other species and ourselves?
Writer and reader, Amanda DaltonProducer, Polly ThomasExec Producer, Eloise Whitmore
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3.
BiogAmanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection – Fantastic Voyage – is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!
Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was ‘in her blood’... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk’s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle’s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini’s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents’ favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising.
The acts that have always most fascinated her are those ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda’s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s – 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship.
Essay 2: Gokkle o’ Geer: Ventriloquists and their Dummies
Fascinated by the ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, in this second essay of the series Amanda turns her attention to ventriloquism. Rooted in Amanda’s personal experience, she considers ventriloquism’s extraordinary relationship with the human gut and traces its origins to the ancient belly prophets – or gastromancers. What might the anarchic truth-speaking of the ventriloquist’s doll have to tell us about both our physiology and our minds?
Writer and reader, Amanda DaltonProducer, Polly ThomasExec Producer, Eloise Whitmore
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3.
BiogAmanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection – Fantastic Voyage – is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!
Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was ‘in her blood’... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk’s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle’s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini’s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents’ favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising.
The acts that have always most fascinated her are those ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda’s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s – 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship.
In That’s Entertainment...? Variety and Me, Amanda revisits some of the acts that made up this form of light entertainment, exploring how they connected with her own family’s life and considering their personal and cultural meaning for her both as a child and as the writer she is today.
Essay 1: Singing, Dancing and Having a Laugh: The Backbone of Variety.
The first essay of this series introduces listeners to the world of Variety as it morphed from Music Hall and journeyed into televised entertainment. It considers the backbone of the Variety Show – song, dance and comedy – through the lens of Amanda’s personal memories of growing up in a rather unusual family.
Writer and reader, Amanda DaltonProducer, Polly ThomasExec Producer, Eloise Whitmore
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3.
BiogAmanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection – Fantastic Voyage – is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!
Essay 5: Christmas Pudding
A new series of essays written and read by the very popular Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College, Oxford, following her much praised series of essays The Meaning of Trees and Composers and their Dogs. Here Fiona explores some of the world’s favourite puddings, all of which have surprising stories and have become symbols far beyond the pudding bowl.
Christmas pudding. A British icon, supposedly a classless, medieval religious symbol but which owes its modern prominence to Dickens. Exported as Empire Pudding, it is loved around the Commonwealth. There are surprising local adaptations in Asia (especially India) and the Caribbean, adding spices and exotic elements and renaming it as their own Christmas tradition. Thus it symbolises the reverse appropriation of imperialism. Key ingredient: dried fruit. Dates back to 4000 BC, much older than any religion, hence its role in nearly all of them. Christmas pudding is an example of the Victorians inventing many of our “traditions” we think of as older. Charles Dickens was a major creator of modern ideas of Christmas, with Mrs Beeton’s recipe for 'Exceedingly Good Plum Pudding' (later Christmas pudding) whether flambéed or teetotal, establishing the British idea of Christmas centring on particular foods. Literary examples include Edward Lear's wacky villain, 'The Plum Pudding Flea'. Seeing and eating a Christmas pudding is like breaking into hot earth, a sweet, steaming mound of loam that looks rich enough to plant and grow the healthiest of Christmas trees; a universal substrate for a global festival. And then … there’s the tooth-breaking sixpence-in-the-pudding tradition.
Producer – Turan AliA Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3
Essay 4: Pavlova
A new series of essays written and read by the very popular Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College, Oxford, following her much praised series of essays The Meaning of Trees and Composers and their Dogs. Here Fiona explores some of the world’s favourite puddings, all of which have surprising stories and have become symbols far beyond the pudding bowl.
Pavlova is a much-disputed national symbol claimed by rival neighbours. A crisp meringue with whipped cream and fruit, it has become a source of pride and national identity for New Zealand and Australia; both claim its creation with disputed historical citations. For both it is their Christmas dessert. But the pavlova symbolises the re-writing of history. Actually, it’s a 1700s Austrian Habsburger dessert, long before ballerina Pavlova's 1926 Australian tour (a story of celebrity hysteria) supposedly inspired it. The USA documented an almost identical dessert in 1896 with another name. Thus Australia or New Zealand can only claim to have renamed it. Key ingredient: egg white. We explore its amazing properties and health benefits. Addressing a pavlova is like looking into a huge cloud at sunset, the surface bright with warm colours (strawberries, passion fruit); breaking it open reveals the white fluffy interior one expects (whipped cream). No wonder the world recognises and loves this pudding.
Producer – Turan AliA Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3
Essay 3: Crème Brûlée
A new series of essays written and read by the very popular Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College, Oxford, following her much praised series of essays The Meaning of Trees and Composers and their Dogs. Here Fiona explores some of the world’s favourite puddings, all of which have surprising stories and have become symbols far beyond the pudding bowl.
Crème brûlée (meaning burnt cream) - a pudding thought of as a French creation (1697). But its surprising backstory saw British food historians claim it as a creation by the chefs at Trinity College, Cambridge (founded in 1546), prompting French academics to then cite their version from the early 1500s, with literary references. French aristocracy’s fervent embracing of it as a wealth and status symbol put this pudding on the international map, but post-revolution the French abandoned it as a decadent symbol of the rejected gentry, with expensive cream, eggs and scarce refined sugar. For two centuries it was in obscurity until a New York chef championed it in 1980, creating a new worldwide favourite. A phoenix rising from the blow torch that caramelises its sugary lid. Key ingredient: refined sugar, connecting it to slavery, and we explore the complex science of brittle caramel. Breaking into a crème brûlée is like cracking the carapace of a well-protected creature, breaching its security to scoop out its warm brain, a dramatic audible pudding that turns us into diggers for liquid gold. Producer – Turan Ali A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3
Essay 2: Summer Pudding
A new series of essays written and read by the very popular Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College, Oxford, following her much praised series of essays The Meaning of Trees and Composers and their Dogs. Here Fiona explores some of the world’s favourite puddings, all of which have surprising stories and have become symbols far beyond the pudding bowl.
Summer pudding, supposedly quintessentially English, (mixed berries encased in juice-soaked stale bread) began life as a symbol of health food for weight conscious American women over a century ago. It’s an invention from Victorian times, originally called ‘hydropathic pudding’, (low-calorie dessert for US health spas). Key ingredients: berries, sugar and stale bread. The changing variety of berries charts the growth of global trading and capitalism. Through this relatively low-calorie dessert we explore how, before refined sugar, desserts were not seen as an especially unhealthy course. Poorer families would have soup and a hearty dessert, as their main meal, with desserts much more likely to be fruit and wholegrain based. Summer pudding symbolises millennia of puddings that were not calorie bombs of refined, hyper-processed ingredients with little nutritional value, quite the reverse. The colours in summer pudding are a large part of its enduring success. Cutting into a summer pudding is like conducting a surgical operation; oozing with deep purple and blood-red syrupy fruit juices; a dramatic pudding that impresses and surprises us all; gory theatre on the dinner table.
Producer – Turan Ali A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3
Essay 1: Tapioca
A new series of essays written and read by the very popular Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College, Oxford, following her much praised series of essays The Meaning of Trees and Composers and their Dogs. Here Fiona explores some of the world’s favourite puddings, all of which have surprising stories and have become symbols far beyond the pudding bowl.
Tapioca is equally loved and loathed; this hot and cold 'frogspawn' pudding’s story is reverse imperialism; an east Asian dessert with many guises, seen as old-fashioned in Britain, now hyper-trendy, conquering new global markets as 'pearls' in bubble tea. Key ingredient: starch from cassava. It is native to South America, taken to Asia and Africa by Portuguese merchants, it is also made into alcoholic drinks. Tapioca, a global staple food, bringing British school dinners many comic tales of revulsion. symbolises one of many puddings that came to Europe from 'the colonies' and was embraced and customised in the UK. Haters will easily believe it is used as a biodegradable plastic substitute (a renewable, reusable, recyclable eco-product) to make bags, gloves and aprons and as the starch used for starching shirts before ironing. Seeing tapioca is a primeval experience; it is viewing the elements that combine to form new life, the ova, the massive spawn of fish or frogs, the quantity ensuring some survive; speaking to us all with wonder or disgust.
Producer – Turan Ali A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3
Khadijah Ibrahiim’s essay, A Journey of Things Past and Present, looks at how Leeds’s built environment has changed and what that tells us about it as a society. Leeds is a rich north England city in a beautiful rural setting, but only the former is reflected in its physical development. The starting point is a much-loved mural that Khadijah contributed to as part of a school art project about the city’s historical and modern architecture. Khadijah still lives in the city and has watched as the skyline has become blotted out by high rise buildings, changing the view and creating a sort of forest of grey trees. She is struck by how beautiful the countryside is around the city, as are many of its historical buildings.
The essay will consider what the built city tells us about its identity and why/how the landscape is developed, then move us into the future, talking about the imminent David Oluwale memorial sculpture by Yinka Shonibare, Hibiscus Rising, in currently empty open space down near the river.
Khadijah Ibrahiim is a literary activist, theatre maker and published poet/writer. She is the Artistic director of Leeds Young Authors, and executive producer of the award-winning documentary ‘We Are Poets’. Recently work includes writing and directing ‘Sorrel & Black cake’ A Windrush Story, a Heritage Lottery funded program as part of GCF. ‘Dead and Wake’ Opera North 2020 Resonance and Leeds Playhouse Connecting Voices.
Writer/reader, Khadijah IbrahiimSound designer, Alisdair McGregorProducer, Polly Thomas
Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England.A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
In his essay, Paradoxopolis, Ian Duhig is inspired by a painting by 'Leeds’s Lost Modernist', the reclusive Joash Woodrow, and the former local synagogue, now the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, both sited on the road north out of Leeds, built by Blind Jack Metcalf, iconic Leeds roadmaker of the Victorian era.
Ian says: "When I first moved here about 50 years ago, Leeds was still advertising itself as The Motorway City of the Seventies and as much as its natural resources of clay and coal, its central location between London and Scotland. and England’s east and west coasts, was a major influence on its development. Immigrants, itinerant labour and roadmakers have built this city and its economy, something I propose to show by inviting you all to join me now on a virtual poetic journey through it on one road, Blind Jack Metcalf’s due north where we will come to understand something of that extraordinary civil engineer and what Virginia Woolf meant when she once wrote in a TLS review: “Personally, we should be willing to read one volume about every street in the city, and should still ask for more”.
The essay touches on the many different populations that have lived and still live in Leeds - Jewish, Irish, Caribbean, Indian, Russian, Polish, Portuguese and their rich cultural manifestations.
Ian Duhig became a full-time writer after working with homeless people for fifteen years. He has published eight collections of poetry, held several fellowships including at Trinity College Dublin, won the Forward Best Poem Prize once, the National Poetry Competition twice and been shortlisted four times for the T.S. Eliot Prize. His New and Selected Poems was awarded the 2022 Hawthornden Prize for Literature. He is currently finishing his next book of poetry, ‘An Arbitrary Light Bulb’, due from Picador in 2024.
Writer/reader, Ian DuhigSound designer, Alisdair McGregorProducer, Polly Thomas
Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England.A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
In her essay, Both Arms, Michelle Scally Clarke writes about the statue of that name by William Kenneth Armitage CBE, a Leeds sculptor known for his semi-abstract bronzes. It is a powerful public image of compassion, support and welcome, created as a monument to friendship. It resonates for Michelle about her own life journey as a mixed race care leaver who was welcomed and held by Leeds as a child and now an adult. ‘Both Arms” also holds great pride and nostalgia for Michelle, a visual symbol of Leeds as a city of hope for now and the future. Her essay explores Leeds as a city of welcome in multiple contexts - adoption and adaptation; migrants and refugees; traders and artists; students; and Nelson Mandela’s iconic visit to the city in the 1990s.
Michelle Scally Clarke is a writer and performer of drama, creative writing, and poetry. Work includes BBC Contains Strong Language 2023, Space2 2016 performance and workshop focusing on mental health ‘Suitcase’, 2018 cross-cultural play ‘Jeans, Whose Genes?’ and now peer-led Clear Out Your Closer poetry group, focusing on writing for wellbeing.
Writer/reader, Michelle Scally ClarkeSound designer, Alisdair McGregorProducer, Polly Thomas
Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England.A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
The world of magic and enchantment that Jeremy Dyson remembers from the Leeds of his childhood are epitomised by the three intricately carved clocks with life size human figures that still keep time in the Edwardian and Victorian shopping arcades in the city centre, now hemmed in by shopping malls and fast food outlets. From discussing the three clocks, he takes us back to the Victorian architectural splendour and status of the city, with its bronze and stone carved animals in Leeds Central Library and a plea to remember the value of spending money on public art.
Jeremy Dyson is the co-creator and co-writer of the multi-award winning comedy show The League of Gentlemen, the BAFTA-nominated comedy drama Funland and the Rose-d’or winning all female sketch show Psychobitches. His play Ghost Stories, co-written with Andy Nyman was nominated for an Olivier award);
Writer/reader, Jeremy DysonSound designer, Alisdair McGregorProducer, Polly Thomas
Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England.A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
The city of Leeds seen through public art past, present and future. In this edition, Malika Booker considers an architectural sculptural frieze located on Abtech House, 18 Park Row, Leeds (formerly West Riding Union Buildings) created in 1900 by the stonemason and sculptor Joseph Thewlis. The sculpture depicts emblematic figures related to Leeds commerce at the time, linked to the abundance of textile industry and mills in Yorkshire and Leeds.
As a member of the Caribbean community living in Chapeltown, she is particularly interested in the Minerva Goddess presiding over these figures, as well as the figures depicting the bank's relationship with empire. She is caught by the multicultural portrayal of figures representing different aspects of Industry and the world, but of particular interest is the depiction of an enslaved African figure lifting and bending over bales of cotton.
This lyrically poetic essay considers the changing visual, political, social and environmental changes that the sculptural frieze has witnessed and the ways in which the world has moved away from this depiction of black bodies.
Malika is and international writer, double winner of Forward Prize for Poetry and Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow at University of Leeds.
Writer/reader, Malika BookerSound designer, Alisdair McGregorProducer, Polly Thomas
Contains some historical racial terminology.
Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England.A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
"Each remembered moment is a keyhole. Time doesn't 'flow like a river', doesn't exist in Odesa at all; the numbers of years, 1986 or 1989 or 2006 are like signs hanging about the corner grocery shop, with names of owners, swaying. In these streets, everything is ever-present. There are places like this on the planet: you can stop in the middle of the street and stick a finger into the skin of time, tear a hole, and see through."
Across a week of personal essays, the Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, writes about the city of his birth and reflects on fatherland, mother tongue, memory, Deafness, exile and oppression. He writes about the Odesa of his childhood and his family's flight from Ukraine to the USA in the early 1990s. He writes of invasion, war, regimes and revolution. Of Odesa's poets, past and present (editing their poems in the bomb shelters). Of the statues in the city squares - Leo Tolstoy, Taras Shevchenko, Catherine the Great.
In his final essay, Ilya visits the Jewish cemetery in Odesa to check on the family graves. He reflects on nation, language, home and exile. "The “New” Jewish cemetery still exists. But the “Old” one is razed. In its place stands park surrounded by apartment buildings, some of which have walls made of brick intermingled with old Jewish tombstones. Yes, the walls of apartments are built out of my people’s tombstones, and inside these buildings people watch soccer battles on TV and drink beer. And that is why juxtaposition, repetition, and fragmentation are my literary devices: like these walls made out of bricks and Jewish gravestones. Inside paragraphs: people shall live again, adopt foundlings, tango during the war, tell stories. I turn and toil giving many answers, but the truth is simple: I bring fragments of our past here because it is a way to read Kaddish for my people."
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odesa, Ukraine in 1977, and arrived in the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press) and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins), In the Hour of War: Poems from Ukraine (Arrowsmith), and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books). He currently teaches in Princeton and lives in New Jersey.
Read by Ilan Goodman, with introductions by the author
Producer: Mair Bosworth for BBC AudioAssistant Producer: Melanie PearsonMixing Engineer: Ilse Lademann
"Each remembered moment is a keyhole. Time doesn't 'flow like a river', doesn't exist in Odesa at all; the numbers of years, 1986 or 1989 or 2006 are like signs hanging about the corner grocery shop, with names of owners, swaying. In these streets, everything is ever-present. There are places like this on the planet: you can stop in the middle of the street and stick a finger into the skin of time, tear a hole, and see through."
Across a week of personal essays, the Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, writes about the city of his birth and reflects on fatherland, mother tongue, memory, Deafness, exile and oppression. He writes about the Odesa of his childhood and his family's flight from Ukraine to the USA in the early 1990s. He writes of invasion, war, regimes and revolution. Of Odesa's poets, past and present (editing their poems in the bomb shelters). Of the statues in the city squares - Leo Tolstoy, Taras Shevchenko, Catherine the Great.
In his fourth essay, he tells the story of a visit to Ukraine during the early months of the 2022 invasion: "At the border, an endless line of cars. Between them weave women wheeling bulky suitcases, children following behind, dragging their stuffed toys which look both curious and afraid. Grannies in wheelchairs sit at the side of the road, drowsing off as soldiers check their papers. Two women spread their breakfast on the hood of a parked Zhiguli. The line is going so slowly I can see what they are eating—brinza cheese, bread, cups of coffee, and hard-boiled eggs. Next to them, a couple of stray cats begging. They’re everywhere: atop anti-tank fortifications, under the bushes, in the arms of the children. Pretty soon, we’re motioned forward, but the women and the cats remain behind us. Perhaps they’re still waiting."
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odesa, Ukraine in 1977, and arrived in the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press) and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins), In the Hour of War: Poems from Ukraine (Arrowsmith), and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books). He currently teaches in Princeton and lives in New Jersey.
Read by Ilan Goodman, with introductions by the author
Producer: Mair Bosworth for BBC AudioAssistant Producer: Melanie PearsonMixing Engineer: Ilse Lademann
Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.
Kenneth Steven recounts the story of American bison introduced in Victorian times to Scotland by William Stewart.
‘They were enclosed in a paddock with a circumference of five or six miles, but had become completely tame – they were however healthy and with an addition of two calves.’ Those buffalo were obviously still there when Queen Victoria and Albert famously came to visit Taymouth Castle in 1842 for she makes mention of them too: ‘We saw part of Loch Tay and drove along the banks of the Tay under fine trees and saw Lord Breadalbane’s American buffaloes’.
What we’re actually talking about here are American bison, very different from the buffalo that live in Africa and Asia. American bison live only in North America. It may be that early French fur trappers inadvertently coined the name buffalo when they used the French word ‘boeufs’ for these huge animals because they resembled giant oxen. Over time ‘boeufs’ became ‘buffalo’. Confusing, too, because the word that William Stewart and everyone else at that time would have used to describe them was buffalo.
Presenter Kenneth Steven
Producer Mark Rickards
A Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 3
Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals back into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.
There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that at one time beavers were distributed widely throughout mainland Scotland. That would seem no great surprise, given the wealth of rivers and lochs in the country, and when you think how much native woodland was present in earlier centuries. But it would seem that by the 12th-century beavers were growing rare in Scotland; a record suggests they were to be found in just one river, though it’s impossible to know how reliable that record was. The last time we hear of them is in the 1526 ‘Cronikils of Scotland’ where beavers are mentioned as being abundant in the Loch Ness area. At some point after that they’re reckoned to have died out.
In 2009, beavers were re-introduced into the Knapdale forest, Argyll, in the west of Scotland. Sixteen beavers from Norway were released during the first year and a further family the next. More than four hundred years after they were pushed to extinction, there are again wild beavers in the country. Now they have been reaffirmed as a native species and afforded protection.
Presenter Kenneth Steven
Producer Mark RIckards
A Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 3
Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.
Kenneth Steven explores his visit to an island in the largest of freshwater lakes, Loch Lomond.
There was nothing; possibly the soft murmur of birdsong, but precious little more than that. I walked on until I must have been about the middle of the island and then I stopped again, looked around me. And all at once, to my amazement and my great joy, were exactly what I had come to find, and the last thing in the world you would ever imagine: wallabies. There were perhaps half a dozen with me in the glade, and they were watching me. They were standing upright and probably they’d have come up to the height of my thighs: somehow akin to giant rabbits; furry-faced and doe-eyed. And as I stood there watching them one or two bounced about between the growing patches of sunlight. And now I knew at last I had proved the story true after all: there were indeed wallabies on the island of Inchconnachan on Loch Lomond.
Presenter Kenneth Steven
Producer Mark Rickards
A Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 3
Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals back into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.
At one time sea eagles are likely to have been revered in Scotland. The Tomb of the Eagles, a Neolithic burial site in Orkney, is testament to that, as are the carved Pictish stones depicting what’s hard not to believe have to be sea eagles. For all that, they most certainly became a hated species in more recent centuries, after the Clearances in the Highlands when the era of the Victorian hunting estate had been ushered in.
When they were reintroduced, Rum was the location chosen by the then Nature Conservancy Council for the release of the first sea eagles in 1975. It’s somehow an island made for eagles, and set in a wider wildscape designed for them every bit as much. Across the water from Scotland, Norway had and has a very healthy population of the birds. So it was eaglets were collected at 6-8 weeks of age from nests in Norway: over the next 10 years a total of 82 eaglets (39 males and 43 females) were brought to Scotland.
Presenter Kenneth Steven
Producer Mark Rickards
A Whistledown Scotland Production for BBC Radio 3
Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals into the Highlands of Scotland, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.
A consignment of eight reindeer landed at Clydebank near Glasgow on April 12th in 1952 thanks to a Swedish Sami Mikel Utsi who hailed from a long line of reindeer herders. There were eight reindeer and they were from Mikel Utsi’s own family herd in Arctic Sweden. The crossing had taken four days and by all accounts it had been pretty rough. Those first eight beasts spent the next month in quarantine at Edinburgh Zoo and then they completed their journey to Highland Scotland and the area of ground that had been granted for them. There are echoes of the old stories of attempted re-introductions of reindeer: low and wet ground, the prevalence of insects. It took time, but in 1954 Mikel Utsi was given permission for free grazing up to the summits of the northern corries of the Cairngorms: in other words, where they needed to be. Further clusters of reindeer were introduced in 1952, 1954 and 1955.
Several hundred reindeer were born in Highland Scotland between 1953 and 1979, that year when Mikel Utsi passed away. Wild reindeer were again living freely in the country that had been theirs centuries before. And the herder who’d brought them here, whose dream had come true, he was able to bring people out into what might just have been another piece of his childhood landscape and tell them of the ways and the stories of the Sami.
Presenter Kenneth StevenProducer Mark Rickards
A Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 3
Writer and musician Kate Kennedy takes a personal look at five lost cellos, and what they can tell us of those who played and loved them and how our identities are shaped by the physical, social and psychological impacts of performance
What happens when you re-imagine what a cello can be? From pieces of derelict instruments, and offcuts of wood, along with cutting edge technology, Kate Kennedy is making a prototype of a new, hybrid cello, that looks nothing like we might expect. This is a cello whose story is yet to begin.
Working amidst the wood shavings and priceless instruments in the historic workshop of Hill and Sons, the cello parts are destined for a youth orchestra in Argentina and designed to be easily reassembled by the young players. Every aspect of the instrument has been re-imagined. As Kate stumblingly creates the very first cello for them, getting to know a cello’s every contour, she reflects on perhaps the weirdest cello ever made, and its role as an instrument for the future, shaping young lives, and telling new stories.
Producer: Adrian WashbourneTechnical production by Mike SherwoodExecutive Producer: Rami TzabarA TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3
Writer and musician Kate Kennedy takes a personal look at five lost cellos, and what they can tell us of those who played and loved them and how our identities are shaped by the physical, social and psychological impacts of performance.
Destroyed and resurrected, how does an instrument's identity change? The 'Mara' Stradivarius is one of the greatest cellos in the world, but in the 1960s it was completely destroyed when the Trieste Trio nearly drowned jumping with it from a burning boat in thick fog into the River Plate. In travelling to Trieste, Kate Kennedy discovers how the Trio’s mental escape into a world of music during the second world war, shutting out the massacres around them, helped them to survive the accident that killed 55 others. She reflects on the cello’s unlikely rescue and lengthy reconstruction and how in the aftermath of its turbulent history its sound is considered by many to be better than ever.
Producer: Adrian WashbourneTechnical production by Mike SherwoodExecutive Producer: Rami TzabarA TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3
Writer and musician Kate Kennedy takes a personal look at five lost cellos, and what they can tell us of those who played and loved them and how our identities are shaped by the physical, social and psychological impacts of performance.
What does it mean to be saved by an instrument? Anita Lasker-Wallfisch became known as the cellist of Auschwitz. Her beloved Ventepane cello disappeared at the same time as her parents were taken by the Nazis from her home in Breslau (now Wroclaw). When she was sent to Auschwitz, she narrowly avoided death by being recruited to the camp orchestra and filling the vacant role of cellist. Kate Kennedy working with archivists, finds the hut in which Anita practised with the other musicians, seeking answers as to why there was cello in Auschwitz, who had previously played it - whilst reflecting on how being saved by a cello, changes your relationship to the instrument.
Producer: Adrian WashbourneTechnical production by Mike SherwoodExecutive Producer: Rami TzabarA TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3
Writer and musician Kate Kennedy takes a personal look at five lost cellos, and what they can tell us of those who played and loved them and how our identities are shaped by the physical, social and psychological impacts of performance
An abandoned cello rescued from a skip stands alone under a pergola in an orchard of a stately home on the outskirts of Nottingham. In an eccentric experiment, created by one of the world experts in honeybees, apiarist and physicist Prof. Martin Benscik has donated the instrument to 400,000 bees who now live very happily inside the cello. Kate Kennedy reflects on how the colony has 'improved' the cello's design by gluing wax onto specific resonant parts whilst the intelligent bees’ buzzing, duets with the cello as the wind whistles through its strings in its exposed location. This is the story of sharing vibrations with them, sharing music, and learning what a cello means to a community of bees.
Producer: Adrian WashbourneTechnical production by Mike SherwoodExecutive Producer: Rami Tzabar
A TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3
Writer, musician and broadcaster Kate Kennedy takes a personal look at five lost cellos, and what they can tell us of those who played and loved them and how our identities are shaped by the physical, social and psychological impacts of performance.
Can a cello hold its player's soul? Jewish-Hungarian Pal Hermann was hailed as 'the next Pablo Casals' in the 1930s. He is now completely forgotten. Kate Kennedy retraces his steps across Europe, with his unique Gagliano cello as he attempted to escape the Nazis, from Berlin to Paris, to Toulouse and finally to Lithuania. Hermann’s cello has been lost since 1952, but the key to finding it, she discovers, is an inscription burnt into the side of it. 'I am the soul of music'. She reflects on her quest to find Hermann's soul, his cello, and how near we can get to recovering a great and neglected musician himself.
Producer: Adrian WashbourneTechnical production by Mike SherwoodExecutive Producer: Rami TzabarA TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3
"Each remembered moment is a keyhole. Time doesn't 'flow like a river', doesn't exist in Odesa at all; the numbers of years, 1986 or 1989 or 2006 are like signs hanging about the corner grocery shop, with names of owners, swaying. In these streets, everything is ever-present. There are places like this on the planet: you can stop in the middle of the street and stick a finger into the skin of time, tear a hole, and see through."
Across a week of personal essays, the Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, writes about the city of his birth and reflects on fatherland, mother tongue, memory, Deafness, exile and oppression. He writes about the Odesa of his childhood and his family's flight from Ukraine to the USA in the early 1990s. He writes of invasion, war, regimes and revolution. Of Odesa's poets, past and present (editing their poems in the bomb shelters). Of the statues in the city squares - Leo Tolstoy, Taras Shevchenko, Catherine the Great.
In his third essay, Ilya revisits the early months of 2022 - watching the news of Ukraine from the United States: "I am watching friends waiting to lose what my family lost in 1993: a city, a language, a home."
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odesa, Ukraine in 1977, and arrived in the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press) and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins), In the Hour of War: Poems from Ukraine (Arrowsmith), and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books). He currently teaches in Princeton and lives in New Jersey.
Read by Ilan Goodman, with introductions by the author
Producer: Mair Bosworth for BBC AudioAssistant Producer: Melanie PearsonMixing Engineer: Ilse Lademann
"Each remembered moment is a keyhole. Time doesn't 'flow like a river', doesn't exist in Odesa at all; the numbers of years, 1986 or 1989 or 2006 are like signs hanging about the corner grocery shop, with names of owners, swaying. In these streets, everything is ever-present. There are places like this on the planet: you can stop in the middle of the street and stick a finger into the skin of time, tear a hole, and see through."
Across a week of personal essays, the Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, writes about the city of his birth and reflects on fatherland, mother tongue, memory, Deafness, exile and oppression. He writes about the Odesa of his childhood and his family's flight from Ukraine to the USA in the early 1990s. He writes of invasion, war, regimes and revolution. Of Odesa's poets, past and present (editing their poems in the bomb shelters). Of the statues in the city squares - Leo Tolstoy, Taras Shevchenko, Catherine the Great.
In his second essay of the week, Ilya reflects on his complicated relationship with the country of his birth. In 1993 Ilya's family fled the anti-Semitism of post-Soviet Ukraine and was granted asylum by the American government: "The story of our coming to America begins with a burning door."
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odesa, Ukraine in 1977, and arrived in the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press) and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins), In the Hour of War: Poems from Ukraine (Arrowsmith), and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books). He currently teaches in Princeton and lives in New Jersey.
Read by Ilan Goodman, with introductions by the author
Producer: Mair Bosworth for BBC AudioAssistant Producer: Melanie PearsonMixing Engineer: Ilse Lademann
"Each remembered moment is a keyhole. Time doesn't 'flow like a river', doesn't exist in Odesa at all; the numbers of years, 1986 or 1989 or 2006 are like signs hanging about the corner grocery shop, with names of owners, swaying. In these streets, everything is ever-present. There are places like this on the planet: you can stop in the middle of the street and stick a finger into the skin of time, tear a hole, and see through."
Across a week of personal essays, the Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, writes about the city of his birth and reflects on fatherland, mother tongue, memory, Deafness, exile and oppression. He writes about the Odesa of his childhood and his family's flight from Ukraine to the USA in the early 1990s. He writes of invasion, war, regimes and revolution. Of Odesa's poets, past and present (editing their poems in the bomb shelters). Of the statues in the city squares - Leo Tolstoy, Taras Shevchenko, Catherine the Great.
In the first essay of the week, Ilya remembers his childhood years: "Pretty much all my childhood and adolescence was spent watching the Soviet Union fall apart, but I couldn't hear, so I followed the century with my eyes. I didn't know anything different, but now I understand that I was seeing in a language of images.
"What I remember most of all is washing Leo Tolstoy's ears. The year is 1989, the mornings of Revolution, the year when my birth-country began to fall apart. His ears are larger than my head, and I am standing on the shoulders of a boy who is standing on the shoulders of another boy. I am scrubbing the enormous bearded head on a pedestal - in the center of Tolstoy Square, one block from our first apartment."
Ilya lost most of his hearing at the age of four: "Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet dictator, is giving his speech. His mouth moves, the crowd claps, I hear nothing. I am raising the TV volume, Brezhnev makes another pronouncement, I do not hear it. It is on the day Brezhnev dies that my mother learns of my deafness, and the odyssey of doctors and hospitals begins. Strangers wear black clothes in public and I think it's for me. Thus begins the history of my deafness."
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odesa, Ukraine in 1977, and arrived in the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press) and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins), In the Hour of War: Poems from Ukraine (Arrowsmith), and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books). He currently teaches in Princeton and lives in New Jersey.
Read by Ilan Goodman, with introductions by the author
Producer: Mair Bosworth for BBC AudioAssistant Producer: Melanie PearsonMixing Engineer: Ilse Lademann
In this series of The Essay, five leading cultural voices choose a great work of art and talk about a small, under-appreciated aspect of the piece that carries great meaning for them.
Art historian and author of The Story of Art Without Men, Katy Hessel draws our attention to the spine as a symbol of feminine strength and survival in Frida Kahlo's Broken Column. No matter how ambitious and brave she was in her painting, life was a constant battle: in love, in her physicality, and her struggle to be taken seriously as a woman and as an artist. Kahlo was stunted by her life – from her operations to her heartbreak, her miscarriage to her constant fight to be heard – Broken Column is a message to us that justice will come; life will be reborn.
Producer:
Mohini Patel
Essays on the underappreciated aspects of well known pieces of culture. Writer Sarfraz Manzoor describes a moment from the film Field of Dreams and what it means to him.
It’s in the minutiae of masterpieces that we feel their thrill and power.
In this series of The Essay, five leading cultural voices choose a great work of art and talk about a small, underappreciated aspect of the piece that carries great meaning for them.
Spectator Literary Editor Sam Leith explores his fascination with a background figure in Judith Kerr’s classic picture book ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’.
Producer: Sam Peach
Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.
In this essay, he focuses on Joan Williams and her novel Old Powder. After her first novel was shortlisted for the National Book Award, this one failed. Did her former lover William Faulkner have something to do with it? For much of the 60s, literary fiction remained a male preserve, Joan Williams looked like being the person to break that mould, then she disappeared. Why?
Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.
In this essay, he focuses on Philip Roth. Roth became permanently alienated from American Jews and even his own mother asked him if he was anti-Semitic. In light of his continuous production and the miraculous late flowering of his art, from The Counterlife to The Plot Against America, it's easy to forget that Portnoy’s Complaint, despite its sales, nearly destroyed his career within his own community. It also coloured how he was seen until his death: as a misogynist who, depending on one's view, had to be forgiven because of his talent, or could not be forgiven, because of his talent. The irony is that while many Jews at the time would like to have had Portnoy's Complaint pulled from bookshops and libraries and pulped, his authorised biography, published in 2021, actually was pulled from sale and pulped because the author, Blake Bailey, was accused of sexual assault.
Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.
In this essay, he focuses on Norman Mailer. His reputation as a novelist had gone down the toilet before he reinvented himself with the non-fiction novel. But there was a cost. Writers should be read and not heard was the ethos of the profession. But mass media provided authors with many different platforms to reach the public. Mailer was on all of them, courting controversy - too successfully. Mailer was a monstrous misogynist before Harvey Weinstein and #metoo. For a while his talent gave him a pass, and then it didn't.
Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.
This essay looks at Amiri Baraka previously known as LeRoi Jones. He was seen as a genuine heir to James Baldwin. A decade younger than Baldwin, Jones/Baraka arrived in Greenwich Village just as the Beat scene was reaching its zenith. He wrote poetry and award-winning off-Broadway plays that dealt with race with the greater fire and frankness the 60s demanded. Then in one public appearance, he cancelled himself with comments about the Jewish young men Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered with James Chaney in Mississippi. The story of a career ruined and a notorious evening that split the liberal coalition in New York, a fracture that continues to this day.
The 1960s are celebrated for the paradigm shift in American society. This shift was reflected in art and culture as well as politics. But these great changes were not accomplished without controversy. Even in the most slow-flowing art form, literature, great controversies burst out that are now forgotten, but they anticipate what is going on with today's cancel culture. They occurred without the multiplier effect of social media but dominated not just book pages but the society at large.
Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of this cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.
In this essay, he focuses on William Styron and his book 'The Confessions of Nat Turner' and asks can a white man write about a black revolutionary hero? Is this taking cultural appropriation too far? Styron was a southerner writing about an important event in his local history. The story was part of his culture, as well. But as a white man does he have the right to imagine the thoughts of an enslaved black man?
Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. Roy McFarlane is revealing secrets about the area of Bilston in the Black Country. His focus is on Big Lizzy, an enormous blast furnace that dominated the skyline of the Black Country for decades. And also the black-owned Rising Star Night Club and Major's iconic Bilston chip shop.
Roy was born in Birmingham but spent many years living in the Black Country. He’s a Poet and Playwright; has held the role of Birmingham Poet Laureate and is currently the Canal Laureate for Britain. His debut poetry collection, Beginning With Your Last Breath, was followed by The Healing Next Time which was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes award and longlisted for the Jhalak Prize.
Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer Production A co-funded project between the BBC, The Space and Arts Council England.
Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region.
R.M. Francis is sharing the secret world of Wren’s Nest in Dudley. Once a site of intense mining, this was the UK’s first urban nature reserve. It’s world-famous geologically for its well-preserved Silurian coral reef fossils and is considered the most diverse and abundant fossil site in the British Isles. Surrounded by council houses, takeaways, pubs and supermarkets, Wren’s Nest is a very surprising place.
RM Francis is a writer from the Black Country. He’s a lecturer in Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Wolverhampton and is currently the poet in residence for the Black Country Geological Society. He's the author of five poetry Chapbook collections plus novels and novellas.
Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer Production A co-funded project between the BBC, The Space and Arts Council England.
Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region.
Brendan Hawthorne is revealing his hidden childhood world of Tipton. Think cooling towers, high-rise flats, scrapyard cranes and angel fish in the canal.
Brendan is a poet, playwright, writer and musician who was born in Tipton in the Black Country. He’s released five collections of poetry and had two plays produced locally. He stood on Antony Gormley's Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and appeared on BBC One's The One Show, translating Shirley Bassey lyrics into Black Country dialect to the Dame herself! Brendan is Poet Laureate of Wednesbury, his adopted home town.
Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer Production A co-funded project between the BBC, The Space and Arts Council England.
Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. Emma Purshouse is introducing a new visitor to St Barts Church which stands on the hill in Wednesbury. Think cock fights, an unimpeded wind from the Urals and orange chips.
Emma was born in Wolverhampton and is a freelance writer, novelist and performance poet. She’s a poetry slam champion and performs regularly at spoken word nights including at The Cheltenham Literature Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Shambala, Womad, Latitude and Solfest. She was Wolverhampton’s first Poet Laureate.
Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer Production A co-funded project between the BBC, The Space and Arts Council England.
Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. Poet Liz Berry is taking a nighttime drive to the top of a hill in the Black Country to visit the ghosts of her childhood in Sedgley.
Liz’s first book of poems, Black Country, a ‘sooty, soaring hymn to her native West Midlands’ (Guardian) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, received a Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award and Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Liz's pamphlet The Republic of Motherhood was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and the title poem won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. In her latest book, The Home Child, a novel in verse, Liz reimagines the story of her great aunt Eliza Showell, one of the many children forcibly migrated to Canada as part of the British Child Migrant schemes.
Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer Production A co-funded project between the BBC, The Space and Arts Council England.
Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
In this final essay of the series, Geoff Dyer retraces a pilgrimage to New Mexico, where DH Lawrence’s ashes were supposedly built into a concrete shrine near Taos at the request of his estranged wife Frieda. But were they actually his ashes?
Dyer is a multi-award winning novelist and non-fiction writer. His many books include Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D.H. Lawrence, and his latest The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings, which was published in 2022.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
Today, Brandon Taylor travels uptown through a racially-charged Manhattan to Harlem, where Langston Hughes is buried in a library - literally underneath his prophetic words.
Taylor is a New York-based novelist, essayist and short story writer originally from Alabama. His novel Real Life was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and his latest The Late Americans will be published in June 2023.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Five more writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
Today Helen Mort ventures up a Yorkshire hill to find Sylvia Plath’s much-vandalised gravestone, a battleground for those claiming the American poet's contested legacy.
Born in Sheffield, Mort is an award-winning poet and novelist.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Five more writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
Today Tracy Chevalier strolls to Stinsford, the Dorset village where Thomas Hardy’s heart is poetically buried separately from his body at Poets' Corner, Westminster – echoing the writer’s divided self.
Chevalier was born in America but now lives in Hardy's beloved home county, Dorset. She has written 11 novels, including Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was adapted into a film of the same name.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Five more writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
Today in the first essay of a new series, Naomi Alderman goes in search of Mary Wollstonecraft's tomb in Old St Pancras churchyard - reputedly the spot where, among other things, Wollstonecraft’s daughter Mary Shelley learnt to write. She sheds light on the life of this important feminist pioneer, offering a moving personal reflection on mother-daughter relationships.
Alderman is an award-winning author whose books include Disobedience and The Power, recently adapted into a nine-part TV series.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other.10. Emilia LanyerPresenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production
Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other.9. Mohammed al-Annuri Presenter Jerry Brotton is Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London.Producer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production
Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other.8. Roderigo LopezPresenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production
Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other.7. Mary FillisPresenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production
Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other.6. Chinano 'the Turk'Presenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary. University of LondonProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production
Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other.5. ManteoPresenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production
Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other.4. Aura SoltanaPresenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production
Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other.3. John CabotPresenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production
Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other.2. John BlankePresenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production
Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other.1. Lucy BaynhamPresenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland Production
400 years after the publication of William Shakespeare's First Folio, five writers are each asked to pick a speech from one of the Folio's plays, tell it what they think it means, and what it means to them. In the last essay of this series, award-winning writer and historian Professor Dame Marina Warner chooses a speech from Othello - from Act 1, Scene 3 of the play. She tells us why it raises questions about stories and history as well as ideas about heroism, prejudice and fantasy.As a writer who has often grappled with the truthfulness of stories, myths and fairy tales, Marina reveals she selected the speech because in the passage, Shakespeare is reflecting on the ways imagination makes things real. At this point in the play, Othello is setting out to clear himself after Brabantio, the father of his new wife, Desdemona, has railed against the 'practices of cunning hell' which Othello must have used to make her fall in love with him. Marina reflects on the reciprocal projections exchanged between tellers of tales and their audiences and considers how suggestible Othello and Desdemona are. Produced by Camellia Sinclair for BBC Audio in Bristol Mixed by Suzy Robins
400 years after the publication of William Shakespeare's First Folio, five writers are each asked to pick a speech from one of the Folio's plays, tell it what they think it means, and what it means to them. This time, award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director David Hare chooses a speech by Macbeth in Act 5, Scene 3 of the play.David tells us how Shakespeare perfected his gift for the lone monologue to help reveal what is going on inside a character's head. In Act 5, Scene 3 of Macbeth, the lead character waits for news of an English army which has been assembled in an attempt to destroy him. As he waits, he gives a speech in which he thinks about what life will be like if he makes it to old age. It's a speech which moves David. He ponders what makes the play so hard to perform, in an essay which takes us from Quentin Tarantino to Philip Larkin.Produced by Camellia Sinclair for BBC Audio in BristolMixed by Suzy Robins
400 years after the publication of William Shakespeare's First Folio, five writers are each asked to pick a speech from one of the Folio's plays, tell it what they think it means, and what it means to them. This time, the author, curator and broadcaster Professor Islam Issa chooses a speech from Act 2, Scene 2 of Julius Caesar. It's a speech which he says is full of masterful language, can leave us with surprising take-homes about everyday life, and has a fascinating performance history. In an essay which takes us from the Roman Empire to Robben Island prison, Islam shows us how much a short speech from early in the play can teach us about humanity and every day life. Drawing on reflections and quotes from Islamic scholar and mystic Jalal al-Din Rūmi and the father of the Japanese chanoyu (the tea ceremony) Sen no Rikyu, Islam reveals how a passage from a play which is over 400 years old might say something about mindfulness in the present moment.Produced by Camellia Sinclair for BBC Audio in BristolMixed by Suzy Robins
400 years after the publication of William Shakespeare's First Folio, five writers are each asked to pick a speech from one of the Folio's plays, tell it what they think it means, and what it means to them. In the second essay of this series, Michelle Terry, actor and artistic director at Shakespeare's Globe, chooses a speech by Rosalind - a character she played. Rosalind appears in As You Like It - a play which was first printed in the 1623 Folio. In the scene Michelle selects, Rosalind is disguised as Ganymede and is speaking to her estranged love Orlando in the Forest of Arden. She tests his love for her by posing as a love doctor and offering to cure him of his love. Michelle tells us how she first found the part a challenge but when she delved into the text and into the Folio, she found subtle clues which revealed an "intelligent and now liberated woman tumbling her way through long sentences." She reveals how when she played Rosalind, she learned to trust Shakespeare and to trust the words on the page. Produced by Camellia Sinclair for BBC Audio in BristolMixed by Suzy Robins
400 years after the publication of William Shakespeare's First Folio, five writers are each asked to pick a speech from one of the Folio's plays, tell it what they think it means, and what it means to them. In the first essay of this series, award-winning theatre and film director Sir Richard Eyre chooses a speech from his favourite Shakespeare play: King Lear.Richard's choice is a speech by Lear from Act 5, Scene 3 of the play. At this point, Lear and his daughter Cordelia are reunited but are about to be dragged off to prison. Richard reveals why he finds Lear's words so moving - after sound and fury, there's quiet: "birds in a cage" and "gilded butterflies." Richard tells us when he first encountered Shakespeare and about when he first felt ready to direct King Lear. He explores how directors have to pick and choose between the Folio version and the Quarto text of the play. He reflects on the power of Lear and Cordelia's relationship and how it evolves through the play. Produced by Camellia Sinclair for BBC Audio in BristolMixed by Suzy Robins
An ancient Japanese Buddhist ritual which involves a red baby bib, a small statue and water, has been taken up by women wanting to have some way of marking a miscarriage and the life not lived. New Generation Thinker Sabina Dosani is a psychiatrist and writer doing research at the University of East Anglia. Her essay looks at the language we use for unborn children who die and at what we can learn about mourning rituals from the work of the nineteenth century French sociologist Emile Durkheim, to modern services performed by Rabbis, in cathedrals and in peoples' back gardens.Producer: Ruth Watts
The trial of sisters begging on the streets of South London led to donations sent in by Victorian newspaper readers and an investigation by the Mendicity Society. New Generation Thinker Oskar Jensen, from Newcastle University, unearthed this story of the Avery girls in the archives and his essay explores the way attitudes to former slaves and to the reform of criminals affected the sisters' sentencing.Producer: Ruth Watts
An 8 year old who condemns his own mother to execution in 1582: New Generation Thinker Emma Whipday, who researches Renaissance literature at Newcastle University, has been reading witch trial records from Elizabethan and Jacobean England to explore how they depict single mothers. And she finds chilling echoes of their language in newspaper articles in our own times.Producer: Ruth Watts
Len Johnson, barred from fighting title bouts, had his career stopped short by a ‘colour bar’, but went onto fight against racism outside the ring. A campaign in Manchester is seeking to erect a statue to commemorate his success both in boxing and activism, which led to the ending of a ban in local pubs which had meant he was being refused service. His story of resistance is explored in this Essay from New Generation Thinker Shirin Hirsch, who is based at Manchester Metropolitan University and the People's History Museum. Producer: Ruth Thomson. Shirin Hirsch is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to share their research as radio. You can hear more from her in a Free Thinking discussion about May Day Rituals and you can find a whole series of features, essays and discussions with New Generation Thinkers drawn from the scheme, which has been running for more than a decade, on the Free Thinking programme website.
From "dull" to "feeble-minded" - the qualities associated with stupidity altered during the Victorian period alongside changes to schooling and education policies. Dr Louise Creechan, from Durham University, looks at the findings of the 1861 Newcastle Commission and at a range of characters in novels. We hear about the sibling rivalry of Maggie and Tom Tulliver and different ideas about male and female capabilities expressed in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (1860) and ideas about education and teaching in Charles' Dickens Our Mutual Friend (1864-65) and Hard Times (1854).Producer: Luke MulhallNew Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. You can hear Louise Creechan discussing her research in episodes of Free Thinking called How We Read https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cgks and Teaching and Inspiration https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00169jh
An ancient Japanese Buddhist ritual which involves a red baby bib, a small statue and water, has been taken up by women wanting to have some way of marking a miscarriage and the life not lived. New Generation Thinker Sabina Dosani is a psychiatrist and writer doing research at the University of East Anglia. Her essay looks at the language we use for unborn children who die and at what we can learn about mourning rituals from the work of the 19th-century French sociologist Emile Durkheim, to modern services performed by Rabbis, in cathedrals and in peoples' back gardens. Producer: Ruth Watts Sabina Dosani is one of the ten New Generation Thinkers chosen in 2022 to work with BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share their research. You can hear her in Free Thinking discussion episodes called Mental Health, Stepmothers and Depicting AIDS in Drama. All episodes of Free Thinking and this Essay series from New Generation Thinkers are available on BBC Sounds and to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts.
Known for madrigals, organ playing and disorderly conduct - Thomas Weelkes wrote his first published pieces when young and went on to work in Winchester college and Chichester cathedral. 400 years after his death, New Generation Thinker Ellie Chan, from the University of Manchester, digs beneath the mythology surrounding his life and music.Producer: Luke MulhallNew Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year who turn their research into radio. You can find a collection of discussions, essays and features focusing on their new research on the Free Thinking programme website and you can hear more from Ellie Chan in an episode called The Tudor Mind.
"Cancel culture" is used to describe debates which touch on freedom of expression today but what can we learn if we look back at events after the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen? Clare Siviter, who lectures on the French Revolution and theatre at the University of Bristol, takes us through the experiences of playwrights and authors, Marie-Joseph Chénier, Olympe de Gouges, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard and Destutt de Tracy, who wrote about how ideas spread.Producer: Torquil MacLeod You can find a collection of essays, discussions and features which showcase the research of New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website. The Arts and Humanities Research Council has worked with BBC Radio 3 on the scheme since 2012.
The trial of sisters begging on the streets of South London led to donations sent in by Victorian newspaper readers and an investigation by the Mendicity Society. New Generation Thinker Oskar Jensen, from Newcastle University, unearthed this story of the Avery girls in the archives and his essay explores the way attitudes to former slaves and to the reform of criminals affected the sisters' sentencing. Producer: Ruth Watts Ten New Generation Thinkers are selected each year to share their research on radio as part of the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can find a collection of discussions, essays and features from academics who have been part of the scheme over the past ten years on the Free Thinking programme website. You can hear more from Oskar in a Free Thinking programmes called Victorian Streets, Busking and Billy Waters. His book Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth-century London is out now.
An 8-year-old who condemns his own mother to execution in 1582: New Generation Thinker Emma Whipday, who researches Renaissance literature at Newcastle University, has been reading witch trial records from Elizabethan and Jacobean England to explore how they depict single mothers. And she finds chilling echoes of their language in newspaper articles in our own times.Producer: Ruth Watts Emma Whipday is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker 2022 on the scheme which puts research on the radio. You can find her sharing her thoughts on Free Thinking episodes about Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare, Cross-dressing, Step-mothers, and Tudor families.
The noisy Victorian world annoyed the mathematician, philosopher and inventor Charles Babbage, who came up with the idea of a programmable computer. He wrote letters complaining about it and a pamphlet which explored ideas about whether the sea could record its own sound, had a memory and could broadcast sound. New Generation Thinker Joan Passey, from the University of Bristol, sets these ideas alongside the work done by engineers cabling the sea-bed to allow communication via telegraph and Rudyard Kipling's images of these "sea monsters." Producer: Torquil MacLeod New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in partnership with BBC Radio 3. Ten early career academics are chosen each year to share their research on radio. You can find a collection of discussions, features and essays on the Free Thinking programme page. Joan Passey can be heard in Free Thinking episodes discussing Cornwall and Coastal Gothic, Oceans and the Sea at the Hay Festival 2022, Vampires and the Penny Dreadful.
Race relations aren't always thought of as being linked with the experimental writing and art promoted by the Bloomsbury set in 1920s Britain but New Generation Thinker Jade Munslow Ong, from the University of Salford, argues that without a group of South African authors who came to Britain we might not have Virginia Woolf's Orlando. But Roy Campbell, William Plomer and Laurens Van der Post weren't the only writers from that country with a Bloomsbury connection. A founder of the Native National Congress - later the ANC - was also hard at work on a novel which depicted an interracial friendship. Producer: Ruth ThomsonNew Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into essays, features and discussions. You can find a collection featuring their insights on the Free Thinking programme page, available on BBC Sounds and to download as the Arts and Ideas podcast.You can hear more from Jade in discussions called Modernism around the World and South African writing.
There are 43 tidal islands around the UK, accessible just briefly each day, along beguiling and perilous paths.As the tide retreats, five writers walk their favourite causeway to islands of refuge, pilgrimage, magic and glamour.Today, WN Herbert follows in the footsteps of pilgrims to Lindisfarne and reflects on the causeway connecting to a meditational space and how we are all now connected by various versions of a tidal causeway, advancing and retreating through. social media.Across the series:Claire McGowan sees time change as she enters the freezing waters off Burgh Island and sips cocktails in the art deco hotel bar.Ben Cottam almost gets stuck in the mud as he searches for the grave of a black slave and questions his family’s past at Sunderland Point. And between kite surfers and dog walkers, Patrick Gale is suspended between two worlds as he follows the S shaped causeway, shaped by relentless tides and currents to St Michael’s Mount.Evie Wyld boards the ferry at Lymington pier and retraces a path well-travelled in her childhood -the Western Yar on the Isle of Wight.As sea levels rise and the sands shift, causeways are in flux. The essayists draw us down onto the sands, revealing what these liminal routes mean to both them and the cultural history of the UK.Producer: Mohini Patel
Five Bicycle-Shaped Musings from writer, raconteur and life-long cyclist Andrew MartinToday Andrew Martin discusses all the reasons there are to get cycling. Today just 2 per cent of journeys are made by bike in the UK although our European neighbours in Holland and Belgium put us to shame with far higher levels of enthusiasm for the humble velocipede. But cycling used to be the default method of transport for many in the UK and with all the health and environmental benefits that cycling brings, there is now a stronger movement than ever to encourage us all to get back on our bikes.Written and read by Andrew MartinProduced by Karen Holden
Five Bicycle-Shaped Musings from writer, raconteur and life-long cyclist Andrew MartinOn a visit to bucolic Derbyshire, Martin pootles happily along a disused railway on a Sustrans National Cycle Network. Early cyclists resisted dedicated cycle lanes; today cycle lanes are regularly created to foster the new cycling boom.Written and read by Andrew MartinProduced by Karen Holden
Five Bicycle-Shaped Musings from writer, raconteur and life-long cyclist Andrew MartinIn this episode the sport of cycling and the problem of the MAMIL (Middle-Aged Man in Lycra) as scrutinised by staunch utility cyclist Andrew Martin. He is amused to discover that Lycra endows a speed advantage of 0.0001% over a three-piece tweed suit and a pipe. Written and read by Andrew MartinProduced by Karen Holden
Five Bicycle-Shaped Musings from writer, raconteur and life-long cyclist Andrew MartinToday how socialism and cycling conjoined. A traditionally working-class transport mode is counterpointed with the idea of the cyclist as supreme individualist, riding on pavements and ignoring red lights. Cycling clubs today focus on environmentalism and sociability rather than socialism, but their slogan is still ‘Fellowship is Life.’ Written and read by Andrew MartinProduced by Karen Holden
Five Bicycle-Shaped Musings from writer, raconteur and life-long cyclist Andrew Martin.Growing up in York, a flat cycling town, despite failing his Cycling Proficiency Test, Martin had about 30 bikes in the 1970s. Crossbars have since become top tubes, oil become lube, cycle clips become trouser bands. He resisted mountain bikes in the 80s as ugly and pompous and anyway never cycled up mountains. He currently owns a Dawes racer, aka road bike, and still cycles daily, finding himself now engaged in – thanks to congestion, environmentalism and Covid – a fashionable pursuit.Written and read by Andrew MartinProduced by Karen Holden
Ben Cottam puts on full waterproofs to cross the causeway to Sunderland Point, in search of the grave of a black slave. There are 43 tidal islands around the UK, accessible just briefly each day along beguiling paths. Across the series, five writers journey across a favourite causeway to islands of refuge, pilgrimage, magic and glamour. Wheels spin wildly and Ben peers anxiously through mud-sprayed windscreen as he tries to drive to Sunderland. There is no real boundary between land and sea, the coastline as fluid as the tide. The danger signs escalate and he remembers tales of insidious rising waters, drilled into him as a child by coastguards from Morecambe Bay. He treks to what is uncomfortably called Sambo’s grave, the resting place of young black slave. Abandoned there by a sea captain in the 18th century, Ben wonders how his own family might have treated him and is heartened to find fresh tributes marking a lost life. Producer: Sarah Bowen
Claire McGowan enters the freezing waters off Burgh Island, connected at low tide to the mainland by a short sandy causeway.There are 43 tidal islands around the UK, accessible just briefly each day along beguiling and perilous paths. Across the series, five writers walk their favourite causeway to islands of refuge, pilgrimage, magic and glamour.Claire grew up with the mythology of the giant Finn McCool flinging rocks at a rival in Scotland and building the Giant’s Causeway. Arriving at Burgh Island, she steps into tranquil 1920s glamour, to sip Agatha Christie inspired cocktails in the Art Deco hotel bar. In this time capsule, Claire explores our relationship with Golden Age Crime and her own past; as the tide retreats, past relationships disappear with the waves and time simultaneously changes and stays still.Producer: Sarah Bowen
There are 43 tidal islands around the UK, accessible just briefly each day, along beguiling and perilous paths.As the tide retreats, five writers walk their favourite causeway to islands of refuge, pilgrimage, magic and glamour.Today, Evie Wyld boards the ferry at Lymington pier and retraces a path well-travelled with her family during school holidays - across the Freshwater Causeway on the Isle of Wight. Her route takes her past ghost benches, a graveyard, World War Two pill boxes on a journey through grief, memory and what survives the tide. Across the series:Claire McGowan sees time change as she enters the freezing waters off Burgh Island and sips cocktails in the art deco hotel bar.Ben Cottam almost gets stuck in the mud as he searches for the grave of a black slave and questions his family’s past at Sunderland Point. W H Herbert follows in the footsteps of pilgrims to Lindisfarne and reflects on the causeway leading to a meditational space.And between kite surfers and dog walkers, Patrick Gale is suspended between two worlds as he follows the S-shaped causeway, shaped by relentless tides and currents to St Michael’s Mount.As sea levels rise and the sands shift, causeways are in flux. The essayists draw us down onto the sands, revealing what these liminal routes mean to both them and the cultural history of the UK.Producer: Mohini Patel
There are 43 tidal islands around the UK, accessible just briefly each day, along beguiling and perilous paths. As the tide retreats, five writers walk their favourite causeway to islands of refuge, pilgrimage, magic and glamour.Patrick Gale joins those seemingly walking on water as they cross to St Michael’s Mount in this first episode. Between kite surfers and dog walkers, he is suspended between two worlds as he follows the S shaped causeway, shaped by relentless tides and currents. He is joined by Lord St Leven who tells him about the near impossible task of maintaining the route to the Mount, his family’s home since the 17th century. And from the tidal walk emerge the stories and myths that have built up around Karrek Loos yn Koos, first visited by Archangel Michael, and now by hundreds of thousands of tourists. Across the series: Evie Wyld retraces a childhood walk across the Freshwater Causeway on the Isle of Wight, finding graveyards and ghost benches.Claire McGowan sees time change as she enters the freezing waters off Burgh Island and sips cocktails in the art deco hotel bar.Ben Cottam almost gets stuck in the mud as he searches for the grave of a black slave and questions his family’s past at Sunderland Point.And W H Herbert follows in the footsteps of pilgrims to Lindisfarne. As sea levels rise and the sands shift, causeways are in flux. The Essayists draw us down onto the sands, revealing what these liminal routes mean to both them and the cultural history of the UK.Producer: Sarah Bowen
Margaret Heffernan explores how art can help us deal with uncertainty in our lives. Without uncertainty, there is no freedom. How do artists learn how to use this freedom to act, to make something, to have original ideas? Modern life feels increasingly uncertain, to the point of making us uncomfortable. Most people hate uncertainty. We feel calmer knowing something bad is definitely coming (say, an electric shock) than when there's a possibility we might escape it. New technology sometimes seems to have the goal of eliminating uncertainty, but is this really desirable? Margaret argues that an element of uncertainty is a necessary part of the creative process, a catalyst which can help us find ways of meeting the challenges of the future. Margaret Heffernan is a writer and entrepreneur, author of the award-winning 'Uncharted: How to Map the Future'. Here, she takes inspiration from artists who embrace uncertainty.Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery
Margaret Heffernan explores how art can help us deal with uncertainty in our lives. How does an artist know when a piece is finished? Or more precisely, when they should stop work and launch it into the world? Margaret Heffernan is a writer and entrepreneur, author of the award-winning 'Uncharted: How to Map the Future'. Here, she takes inspiration from artists who embrace uncertainty.Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery
Margaret Heffernan explores how art can help us deal with uncertainty in our lives. How do artists tolerate the fear that uncertainty creates? Modern life feels increasingly uncertain, to the point of making us uncomfortable. Most people hate uncertainty. We feel calmer knowing something bad is definitely coming (say, an electric shock) than when there's a possibility we might escape it. New technology sometimes seems to have the goal of eliminating uncertainty, but is this really desirable? Margaret argues that an element of uncertainty is a necessary part of the creative process, a catalyst which can help us find ways of meeting the challenges of the future. Artists deal with uncertainty all the time: starting work nobody asked for, rarely sure where the work will go, when it’s finished or whether it will connect with a public. This can be deeply frightening: Tracey Emin sketches before having enough courage to paint; Sebastian Barry fears the next word won’t come. To the frequent dismay of fans, artists change direction before they have to. They have agency, independence, but they take a risk each time they begin. Margaret Heffernan is a writer and entrepreneur, author of the award-winning 'Uncharted: How to Map the Future'. Here, she takes inspiration from artists who embrace uncertainty.Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery
Margaret Heffernan explores how art can help us deal with uncertainty in our lives. How do artists begin a new project? The point is to be open to the world, and to have 'an eye that is always watching'. Modern life feels increasingly uncertain, to the point of making us uncomfortable. Most people hate uncertainty. We feel calmer knowing something bad is definitely coming (say, an electric shock) than when there's a possibility we might escape it. New technology sometimes seems to have the goal of eliminating uncertainty, but is this really desirable? Margaret argues that an element of uncertainty is a necessary part of the creative process, a catalyst which can help us find ways of meeting the challenges of the future. Artists deal with uncertainty all the time: starting work nobody asked for, rarely sure where the work will go, when it’s finished or whether it will connect with a public. This can be deeply frightening: Tracey Emin sketches before having enough courage to paint; Sebastian Barry fears the next word won’t come. To the frequent dismay of fans, artists change direction before they have to. They have agency, independence, but they take a risk each time they begin. Margaret Heffernan is a writer and entrepreneur, author of the award-winning 'Uncharted: How to Map the Future'. Here, she takes inspiration from artists who embrace uncertainty.Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery
Margaret Heffernan explores how art can help us deal with uncertainty in our lives. Modern life feels increasingly uncertain, to the point of making us uncomfortable. Most people hate uncertainty. We feel calmer knowing something bad is definitely coming (say, an electric shock) than when there's a possibility we might escape it. New technology sometimes seems to have the goal of eliminating uncertainty, but is this really desirable? Margaret argues that an element of uncertainty is a necessary part of the creative process, a catalyst which can help us find ways of meeting the challenges of the future. Artists deal with uncertainty all the time: starting work nobody asked for, rarely sure where the work will go, when it’s finished or whether it will connect with a public. This can be deeply frightening: Tracey Emin sketches before having enough courage to paint; Sebastian Barry fears the next word won’t come. To the frequent dismay of fans, artists change direction before they have to. They have agency, independence, but they take a risk each time they begin. We love their work because it shows a truth we avoid. We want evidence for every decision, proof that our project will be successful before it starts, ratings, sales numbers and prizes to prove our worth. Data to promise certainty before we dare try anything. But maybe this craving for certainty constrains our imagination and leaves us passive, because there are no datasets from the future. Perhaps an addiction to certainty suppresses our capacity for exploration and discovery in ourselves and in the world. Margaret Heffernan is a writer and entrepreneur. Here, she takes inspiration from artists who embrace uncertainty.Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery
Perhaps above all, the artistic quality we prize most is imagination. Psychologist Professor Victoria Tischler explores the enigmatic work of ceramicist Shinichi Sawada. Shinichi's sculptures look like small demons or monsters. The organic forms are covered with clay studs that resemble spikes, some forming mask-like facial figures, like totem poles.As an artist with autism, Shinichi is largely non-verbal, so he can't explain the meaning of his work, allowing the viewers' imagination to run riot. The best way to experience any art.
In this essay on untrained and self-taught artists, psychologist Professor Victoria Tischler focuses on devotion and the important role of faith and belief and how it manifests artistically. Now considered one of the most important folk artists of the 20th century, Minnie Evans was born in 1892 in a cabin in North Carolina, the great-granddaughter of a slave from Trinidad. She attributed much of her inspiration to religious visions she began having as a child. “God has sent me an angel that stands by me. It stands with me and directs me what to do”. But from these humble beginnings, Evans work has gone on to grace the central pavilion at the Venice Biennale in the summer 2022.
Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns completes his exploration of South African food, as he discusses the national dish, and what it says about the Rainbow Nation.South African cuisine is as varied as South Africa itself, and in this set of Essays, Lindsay has delved into its different cuisines for five personal and lyrical ruminations on what these foods evoke for him. Each Essay - covering one of South Africa's racial groups - offers distinct memories of different aspects of his many experiences in South Africa. We'll sample the different cuisines, and experience these nuanced and complex communities through Lindsay's eyes, ears, and taste buds.In today's final Essay, Lindsay strolls through the picture postcard community of Bo-Kaap in Cape Town, on his way to eat a personal favourite - tomato bredie. His lunch companion, meanwhile, orders bobotie - a meal which originated in the country's Cape Malay community but has now become the national dish. And as he reflects on the series, Lindsay wonders what this development says about finding a balance between acknowledging South Africa's troubling past and making a future together. Producer: Giles Edwards
Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns explores the food of South Africa.South African cuisine is as varied as South Africa itself, and in this set of Essays, Lindsay will delve into the foods of the Rainbow Nation for five personal and lyrical ruminations on what these foods evoke for him. Each Essay - covering one of South Africa's racial groups - offers distinct memories of different aspects of his many experiences in South Africa. We'll sample the different cuisines, and experience these nuanced and complex communities through Lindsay's eyes, ears, and taste buds.In today's Essay, Lindsay introduces Bunny chow, a dish made from a hollowed-out loaf of bread filled with curry, which was created in Durban, and is today the most famous dish of Durban’s Indian community – one of the largest in the world outside India itself. Born at a time when Indian restaurateurs were prevented by law from serving food to black workers - the dish was served surreptitiously so that passing police forces would see only a loaf of bread - today it is a national staple.Producer: Giles Edwards.
Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns explores the food of South Africa.South African cuisine is as varied as South Africa itself, and in this set of Essays, Lindsay will delve into the foods of the Rainbow Nation for five personal and lyrical ruminations on what these foods evoke for him. Each Essay - covering one of South Africa's racial groups - offers distinct memories of different aspects of his many experiences in South Africa. We'll sample the different cuisines, and experience these nuanced and complex communities through Lindsay's eyes, ears, and taste buds.For his third Essay, Lindsay will describe the cuisine he knows, and loves, the best: Cape Coloured cuisine. We'll learn about snoek (barracuda), pickled fish, mince and cabbage stew and the Gatsby steak sandwich. It is, he says, the quintessential poor man’s fusion cuisine - and the most under-rated and overlooked food in the whole country.Producer: Giles Edwards
Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns explores the food of South Africa. South African cuisine is as varied as South Africa itself, and in this set of Essays, Lindsay will delve into the foods of the Rainbow Nation for five personal and lyrical ruminations on what these foods evoke for him. Each Essay - covering one of South Africa's racial groups - offers distinct memories of different aspects of his many experiences in South Africa. We'll sample the different cuisines, and experience these nuanced and complex communities through Lindsay's eyes, ears, and taste buds. For his first Essay, Lindsay invites listeners to join him as he samples the cuisine of South Africa’s Xhosa and Zulu township communities – smiley (a boiled sheep’s head in a drum), amangina (chicken, cow, pig, lamb and sheep’s feet served with hot sauce), and pap – a cornmeal porridge so popular it appears on the menu at South African branches of KFC. Lindsay says it does what it ought to do - "placate the belly and nourish the soul."Producer: Giles Edwards
Few artists can rival Mary Barnes for the sheer honesty of experience conveyed in paintings she created while in the grips of psychosis. Her 'IT' series of paintings are a brutal depiction of severe mental illness, and some of the best visual examples of the pathos and terror of the experience. In later life when her mental health recovered she began to exhibit her work and to give lectures on mental health, psychotherapy, and the importance of creativity in her recovery.For psychologist Professor Victoria Tischler she's drawn to Mary’s work as it is more than an illustration of mental illness but also a story of the power of honesty to find truth, hope and salvation.
Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns explores the food of South Africa.South African cuisine is as varied as South Africa itself, and in this set of Essays, Lindsay will delve into the foods of the Rainbow Nation for five personal and lyrical ruminations on what these foods evoke for him. Each Essay - covering one of South Africa's racial groups - offers distinct memories of different aspects of his many experiences in South Africa. We'll sample the different cuisines, and experience these nuanced and complex communities through Lindsay's eyes, ears, and taste buds.For this second Essay, we find Lindsay walking up Table Mountain in Cape Town, and munching on biltong, what he calls "the most regal and masculine of all amuse-bouches". We'll hear, too, about the importance of the braai, and about the central place of meat in white South African cuisine. But as Lindsay chews this all over, he mulls an important question: for many years this cuisine was seen as the ‘Oppressors’ food’ – so should he still be reluctant to eat it?Producer: Giles Edwards
Unconventionality is a quality celebrated in art, and no-one demonstrates it better than Madge Gill. Psychologist Prof Victoria Tischler explores this mesmerising artist's work.Her embroidered calicos, some 40 metres in length are full of elegant black lines filling every space of the fabric, in patterns that appear to form a winding staircase and chequerboard tiles, similar to those that would have been fashionable in the Victorian and Edwardian times in which she lived. The fact that Gill became an artist at all was unconventional enough. Born out of wedlock in the working class east end of London, she was sent to Canada aged nine as part of a child labour scheme. It was just one of the many tragedies and hardships to befall her in her life, yet her artistic output is testimony to her efforts not to be defined by them.
Psychologist Professor Victoria Tischler celebrates 'outsider art.' Art created by the marginalised, the untrained, those outside the establishment. She begins with an essay on 'the Picasso of psychotic art' Adolf Wölfli. He called himself The Holy St Adolf the Second, master of algebra, military commander in chief, and chief music director, giant theatre director, captain of the almighty giant steamship and doctor of arts and sciences. Confined to the Waldu asylum in Switzerland for more than half his life, the Surrealist artist André Breton referred to Wölfli’s art as one of the three or four most important bodies of works of the twentieth century.Wölfli's output was prodigious and it's this compulsion to create that Victoria wants to explore - was painting a release from his mental anguish or was the urge part of the torment?
As she travels the world and prepares to become a mother, the narrator of Olivia Wenzel’s novel reflects on her upbringing as a queer, Black woman in a white family, with her mother, a rebellious East German punk who was mostly absent, and her grandmother who was loyal to the socialist regime. Her father, an Angolan student, left shortly after she was born and her twin brother died when they were 17. For Queer History Month, New Generation Thinker Tom Smith looks at the ideas of queer family life explored in 1000 Serpentinen Angst, now available in an English translation by Dr Priscilla Layne as 1000 Coils of Fear.Producer: Ruth Watts
Soldiers fighting in the Crimean lapped up this story, and it also influenced the young William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who read it at Oxford. The Heir of Redclyffe, published in 1853, reflects the mid-Victorian trend for medievalism and resurgence of High Church Anglicanism, combining gothic melodrama with sharply observed social realism, sprightly dialogue and wry humour. Although Charlotte M Yonge came to be associated mainly with domestic realism, in her long career (1823–1901) she worked across a wide range of genres, writing biographies, histories, children's books, and novels from historical epics to long-running family sagas. In her bicentenary year, New Generation Thinker Clare Walker Gore argues that now is the time to rediscover this brilliant and neglected woman writer.Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Urbanisation, migration and ‘folk language’ are explored in the 1984 novel by Latife Tekin. The story is a carnivalesque fusion of contrasts like its title – where ‘Berji’ conjures images of an innocent shepherdess and ‘Kristin’ of a sex worker. There’s blind old Güllü Baba, rumoured to cure the ills caused by a nearby factory’s chemical wastewater. There’s Fidan of Many Skills, rumoured to know all the ‘arts of the bed’. There’s the rumour of roads, jobs, and clean water coming to Flower Hill: they never materialise. In his foreword to Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills, John Berger crowns ‘rumour’ its ultimate storyteller. New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani looks at the way the inhabitants of Flower Hill make sense of their disorienting transition from village life to shanty town in the story from one of Turkey's most influential female authors writing today.Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Poet, abolitionist, and activist for women’s rights, Frances EW Harper was one of the first African American women to be published in the United States, producing 80 poems, various articles, sketches, serialised books and short stories and a novel printed when she was aged 67. New Generation Thinker Xine Yao looks at her career, focusing on this 1892 novel Iola Leroy. It tells the story of a Black mixed race woman who survives the Civil War, experiences romances and has to navigate the post-emancipation world and it explores ideas about science, education, evolving forms of anti-Black racism, and women's social responsibilities. Producer: Luke Mulhall
Arrested by military intelligence, Philip Wylie (1902-1971) went on to become an adviser to the chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee for Atomic Energy. At least nine films have been made out of stories he published which ranged across topics including ecology, science fiction and the threat of nuclear holocaust. New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon reads his short story The Paradise Crater. Producer: Luke Mulhall
Great empty buildings, which only a few decades ago were bustling convents, tower over most towns and villages in Ireland, but they represent a world which is disappearing along with the once all-powerful Irish Roman Catholic Church. In this series of The Essay, Olivia O'Leary, convent-educated and a lapsed Catholic, asks where all the Irish nuns have gone.Olivia's final essay is about the end of the tradition of religious orders. Ireland has fallen out of love with the Catholic Church. Hardly a month goes by without more revelations of harsh treatment of girls in institutions run by nuns and of sexual abuse of boys in institutions run by brothers and priests. Nuns have to deal with being despised in a country that used to see them as saints. ‘Before, we were on a pedestal we didn’t deserve’ one nun said to Olivia. ‘Neither do we deserve the gutter. But we took the pedestal, so now we have to take the gutter.’Presenter Olivia O'LearyProducer Claire CunninghamA Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3
Great empty buildings, which only a few decades ago were bustling convents, tower over most towns and villages in Ireland, but they represent a world which is disappearing along with the once all-powerful Irish Roman Catholic Church. In this series of The Essay, Olivia O'Leary, convent-educated and a lapsed Catholic, asks where all the Irish nuns have gone.In her fourth essay, about nuns and politics, Olivia describes the conservative Roman Catholic state Ireland was in the Sixties. Communism was seen as the greatest enemy and hospitals and schools were run by Catholic nuns as a way of imposing church rule and keeping the state out of people’s lives. However, it was nuns who swung to the left when the second Vatican Council pushed for a more modern, liberal church, and missionaries coming back from South America preached that the church should be siding with the poor. Many nuns left their comfortable convents to live with the poor. They sat down in front of trucks coming to evict Travellers. They protested against President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 visit because of his support for right-wing regimes in Central and South America. They criticised governments and demanded social justice. They abandoned respectability and many of the more conservative priests and bishops thought they were making a show of themselves. They continued to make a show of themselves.Presenter Olivia O'LearyProducer Claire CunninghamA Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3
Great empty buildings, which only a few decades ago were bustling convents, tower over most towns and villages in Ireland, but they represent a world which is disappearing along with the once all-powerful Irish Roman Catholic Church. In this series of The Essay, Olivia O'Leary, convent-educated and a lapsed Catholic, asks where all the Irish nuns have gone.In her third essay, about class in the Irish Catholic Church, she describes how girls from poor backgrounds, particularly young pregnant girls, suffered harsh mistreatment in the institutions the nuns ran and felt the sharp end of their obsession with purity. How could the nuns who had been so good to Olivia belong to the same orders who punished girls whose only ‘sin’ was that they were poor or illegitimate, or that they got in trouble?Presenter Olivia O'LearyProducer Claire CunninghamA Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3
Great empty buildings, which only a few decades ago were bustling convents, tower over most towns and villages in Ireland, but they represent a world which is disappearing along with the once all-powerful Irish Roman Catholic Church. In this series of The Essay, Olivia O'Leary, convent-educated and a lapsed Catholic, asks where all the Irish nuns have gone.In her second essay, Olivia describes the education which the nuns gave her, which was first class. These were almost the only university-educated professional women she and her classmates knew, and they wielded power. They ran big organisations and took a real interest in Irish women’s education when the state did not. They were often more ambitious for girls than their parents were.Presenter Olivia O'LearyProducer Claire CunninghamA Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3
Great empty buildings, which only a few decades ago were bustling convents, tower over most towns and villages in Ireland, but they represent a world which is disappearing along with the once all-powerful Irish Roman Catholic Church. In this series of The Essay, Olivia O'Leary, convent-educated and a lapsed Catholic, asks where all the Irish nuns have gone. In her first essay, Olivia recalls her 12-year-old view of nuns: their long black clothes, their heads encased in stiff linen, their obsession with prayer and the Virgin Mary and purity - and making sure that girls would never see one another naked. Olivia is one of the last generation who went to a boarding school run by nuns and, like many other Irish families, she had an aunt who was a nun.Presenter Olivia O'LearyProducer Claire CunninghamA Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3
Environmental historian Bathsheba Demuth travels to the Arctic ice and tundra to look for the ways people and animals shape each other’s lives.In this episode, she journeys to the Yukon River, to see how the history of salmon connects to the present - and shows how even those of us living far away have a relationship with the fish of this great river.Bathsheba Demuth is an environmental historian and writer who spends much of her time in Arctic communities across Eurasia and North America. Her work draws on archives, ecology, and experience of the landscape to ask how places and people change each other.Her interest in northern environments and cultures began when, at 18, she moved to the village of Old Crow in the Yukon. For two years, she mushed huskies, hunted caribou, fished for salmon, tracked bears, and otherwise learned to survive in the taiga and tundra.In this essay series she brings us into the intertwined pasts of people and animals of the lands and waters around the Bering Strait - the ice-studded stretch of ocean between Alaska and the Russian far east.She shows how dogs, whales, walruses, caribou, and salmon have helped make history - and in turn, how people have changed how they value and relate to creatures finned and furred. From shifts in the culture of whales to how reindeer flummoxed Soviet plans and dogs’s emotions mattered to the British Empire, each essay is a journey into how paying attention to the environment and the animals within it helps us better understand history, the nature of change, and our place in the world.Writer and reader Bathsheba DemuthProducer Natalie SteedA Rhubarb Rhubarb Production for BBC Radio 3
A story about how not even superpowers can escape ecological context.In this episode Bathsheba Demuth looks at how reindeer are deeply sensitive to the climate, and how that sensitivity thwarted plans to make them part of capitalist and socialist economies. Bathsheba Demuth is an environmental historian and writer who spends much of her time in Arctic communities across Eurasia and North America. Her work draws on archives, ecology, and experience of the landscape to ask how places and people change each other.Her interest in northern environments and cultures began when, at 18, she moved to the village of Old Crow in the Yukon. For two years, she mushed huskies, hunted caribou, fished for salmon, tracked bears, and otherwise learned to survive in the taiga and tundra.In this essay series she brings us into the intertwined pasts of people and animals of the lands and waters around the Bering Strait - the ice-studded stretch of ocean between Alaska and the Russian far east.She shows how dogs, whales, walruses, caribou, and salmon have helped make history—and in turn, how people have changed how they value and relate to creatures finned and furred.From shifts in the culture of whales to how reindeer flummoxed Soviet plans and dogs’s emotions mattered to the British Empire, each essay is a journey into how paying attention to the environment and the animals within it helps us better understand history, the nature of change, and our place in the world.Writer and reader Bathsheba DemuthProducer: Natalie SteedA Rhubarb Rhubarb Production for BBC Radio 3
Environmental historian Bathsheba Demuth travels to the Arctic ice and tundra to show how humans and animals together have shaped its landscape and history.In this episode she looks at how the human relationship to walruses has changed and changed again, from seeing them as ancestors to part of the socialist future, offering an example of how what we value can endanger—or save—a species. Bathsheba Demuth is an environmental historian and writer who spends much of her time in Arctic communities across Eurasia and North America. Her work draws on archives, ecology, and experience of the landscape to ask how places and people change each other.Her interest in northern environments and cultures began when, at 18, she moved to the village of Old Crow in the Yukon. For two years, she mushed huskies, hunted caribou, fished for salmon, tracked bears, and otherwise learned to survive in the taiga and tundra.In this essay series she brings us into the intertwined pasts of people and animals of the lands and waters around the Bering Strait - the ice-studded stretch of ocean between Alaska and the Russian far east.She shows how dogs, whales, walruses, caribou, and salmon have helped make history—and in turn, how people have changed how they value and relate to creatures finned and furred.From shifts in the culture of whales to how reindeer flummoxed Soviet plans and dogs’ emotions mattered to the British Empire, each essay is a journey into how paying attention to the environment and the animals within it helps us better understand history, the nature of change, and our place in the world.Writer and reader: Bathsheba DemuthProducer: Natalie SteedWhale recordings: Kate Stafford, Oregon State UniversityA Rhubarb Rhubarb Production for BBC Radio 3
A story of how animal cultures come to matter. In this episode Bathsheba Demuth heads to the country of bowhead whales to examine how different people in the Arctic have valued these creatures. She shows how these whales responded to commercial hunting by changing their culture and how their choices pushed into the domain of people. Bathsheba Demuth is an environmental historian and writer who spends much of her time in Arctic communities across Eurasia and North America. Her work draws on archives, ecology, and experience of the landscape to ask how places and people change each other.Her interest in northern environments and cultures began when, at 18, she moved to the village of Old Crow in the Yukon. For two years, she mushed huskies, hunted caribou, fished for salmon, tracked bears, and otherwise learned to survive in the taiga and tundra.In this essay series she brings us into the intertwined pasts of people and animals of the lands and waters around the Bering Strait - the ice-studded stretch of ocean between Alaska and the Russian far east. She shows how dogs, whales, walruses, caribou, and salmon have helped make history—and in turn, how people have changed how they value and relate to creatures finned and furred.From shifts in the culture of whales to how reindeer flummoxed Soviet plans and dogs’ emotions mattered to the British Empire, each essay is a journey into how paying attention to the environment and the animals within it helps us better understand history, the nature of change, and our place in the world.Writer and reader: Bathsheba DemuthProducer: Natalie SteedA Rhubarb Rhubarb Production for BBC Radio 3
Bathsheba Demuth is an environmental historian and writer who spends much of her time in Arctic communities across Eurasia and North America. Her work draws on archives, ecology, and experience of the landscape to ask how places and people change each other.Her interest in northern environments and cultures began when, at 18, she moved to the village of Old Crow in the Yukon. For two years, she mushed huskies, hunted caribou, fished for salmon, tracked bears, and otherwise learned to survive in the taiga and tundra.In this essay series she brings us into the intertwined pasts of people and animals of the lands and waters around the Bering Strait - the ice-studded stretch of ocean between Alaska and the Russian far east. She shows how dogs, whales, walruses, caribou, and salmon have helped make history—and in turn, how people have changed how they value and relate to creatures finned and furred.From shifts in the culture of whales to how reindeer flummoxed Soviet plans and dogs’s emotions mattered to the British Empire, each essay is a journey into how paying attention to the environment and the animals within it helps us better understand history, the nature of change, and our place in the world.In this episode she looks at the shifting historical relationship between humans and dogs and the impact of that intimacy on commerce and imperial aspiration.Writer and reader: Bathsheba DemuthProducer: Natalie SteedA Rhubarb Rhubarb Production for BBC Radio 3
A very personal essay series about communication, listening, performance and British Sign Language (BSL).Sophie Stone considers her own life, career as an actor and identity as a deaf person, through the role of communication, both spoken and in BSL. Hers is an unusual and vivid life – she was sometimes homeless as a child, became a young single mother, broke new ground as the first deaf acting student at RADA, enjoys a successful actor career, and maintains strong activist roots.Each essay describes a formative stage in Sophie’s life and career, incorporating historical figures, the challenges and achievements of deaf and hard of hearing people since the 19th century and her own personal experience. Essay 5: Unspoken Communication Sophie eloquently speaks about being the child of addicts and finding a safe place to express emotions in the theatre. She talks about her relationship to her absent father and her unspoken grief held in silence after his death. Listen Harder broadcast on BBC Radio 3 will be accompanied by an animated transcript and BSL translation on BBC Sounds website, increasing accessibility.Sophie Stone is a leading actor who grew up in east London and has been Deaf since birth. She was the first deaf student at RADA. Since graduating, theatre includes: Othello (The Watermill Theatre); The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time (NT/Frantic Assembly Tour); The Living Newspaper (The Royal Court); The New Tomorrow (The Young Vic); The Beauty Parade (Wales Millennium Centre); As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe); Emilia (Shakespeare’s Globe/ West End); Jubilee (Lyric, Hammersmith/ Manchester Royal Exchange); The Greatest Wealth (The Old Vic); Herons (Lyric, Hammersmith); Mother Courage and Her Children (National Theatre); and In Water I’m Weightless (National Theatre of Wales). Television includes: The Chelsea Detective (2), Moving On, Two Doors Down (2), Shakespeare & Hathaway, Shetland, The Crown, Doctor Who, Mapp and Lucia, Moonstone, Marchlands, Midsomer Murders (2), Small World, Holby City, Casualty (2) and FM. Film includes: Name Me Lawand, Retreat (Sophie was awarded Best Actress Award, Clin d’Oeil Festival), My Christmas Angel, Confessions and Coming Home. She is co-founder of the Deaf & Hearing Ensemble Theatre Company, associate Artist for The Watermill Theatre, Pentabus Theatre and works as a consultant for several TV, Film and Theatre companies. Sophie had a lead role in Beethoven Can Hear You for BBC Radio 3 in 2020. Her essay for Radio 3 in 2020 for the Five Kinds of Beethoven series, was a critical success. It was accompanied by an animated transcript to increase accessibility.Writer and reader Sophie StoneRecording engineer Mat Clarke at Sonica StudiosSound designer Eloise WhitmoreProducers Polly Thomas and Mina AnwarA Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
A very personal essay series about communication, listening, performance and British Sign Language (BSL).Sophie Stone considers her own life, career as an actor and identity as a deaf person, through the role of communication, both spoken and in BSL. Hers is an unusual and vivid life – she was sometimes homeless as a child, became a young single mother, broke new ground as the first deaf acting student at RADA, enjoys a successful actor career, and maintains strong activist roots.Each essay describes a formative stage in Sophie’s life and career, incorporating historical figures, the challenges and achievements of deaf and hard of hearing people since the 19th century and her own personal experience. Essay 4: Ownership of Communication Sophie talks about finding and owning her authentic voice. She discusses her years as an actor in a profession that sadly lacked space for disabled actors to own their own experiences without being seen as less than able. Sophie explores a brief history of Sign Language from around the world and its importance as a vital communication tool.Listen Harder broadcast on BBC Radio 3 will be accompanied by an animated transcript and BSL translation on BBC Sounds website, increasing accessibility.Sophie Stone is a leading actor who grew up in east London and has been deaf since birth. She was the first deaf student at RADA. Since graduating, theatre includes: Othello (The Watermill Theatre); The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time (NT/Frantic Assembly Tour); The Living Newspaper (The Royal Court); The New Tomorrow (The Young Vic); The Beauty Parade (Wales Millennium Centre); As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe); Emilia (Shakespeare’s Globe/ West End); Jubilee (Lyric, Hammersmith/ Manchester Royal Exchange); The Greatest Wealth (The Old Vic); Herons (Lyric, Hammersmith); Mother Courage and Her Children (National Theatre); and In Water I’m Weightless (National Theatre of Wales). Television includes: The Chelsea Detective (2), Moving On, Two Doors Down (2), Shakespeare & Hathaway, Shetland, The Crown, Doctor Who, Mapp and Lucia, Moonstone, Marchlands, Midsomer Murders (2), Small World, Holby City, Casualty (2) and FM. Film includes: Name Me Lawand, Retreat (Sophie was awarded Best Actress Award, Clin d’Oeil Festival), My Christmas Angel, Confessions and Coming Home. She is co-founder of the Deaf & Hearing Ensemble Theatre Company, associate Artist for The Watermill Theatre, Pentabus Theatre and works as a consultant for several TV, Film and Theatre companies. Sophie had a lead role in Beethoven Can Hear You for BBC Radio 3 in 2020. Her essay for Radio 3 in 2020 for the Five Kinds of Beethoven series, was a critical success. It was accompanied by an animated transcript to increase accessibility.Writer and reader Sophie StoneRecording engineer Mat Clarke at Sonica StudiosSound designer Eloise WhitmoreProducers Polly Thomas and Mina AnwarA Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
A very personal essay series about communication, listening, performance and British Sign Language (BSL).Sophie Stone considers her own life, career as an actor and identity as a Deaf person, through the role of communication, both spoken and in BSL. Hers is an unusual and vivid life – she was sometimes homeless as a child, became a young single mother, broke new ground as the first deaf acting student at RADA, enjoys a successful actor career, and maintains strong activist roots.Each essay describes a formative stage in Sophie’s life and career, incorporating historical figures, the challenges and achievements of deaf and hard of hearing people since the 19th century and her own personal experience. Essay 3: Visibility of Communication Sophie talks candidly about the fear and isolation she felt as a deaf child, how seeing other deaf people, finding a community experiencing the world in similar ways, encouraged her to realise she was not alone. In challenging limiting beliefs and fighting for Deaf rights, Sophie describes finding the courage to carve out new pathways and opportunities in her life and career, creating opportunities for deaf voices to be integral to the creative process, and carving space for deafness to be made visible.Listen Harder broadcast on BBC Radio 3 will be accompanied by an animated transcript and BSL translation on BBC Sounds website, increasing accessibility.Sophie Stone is a leading actor who grew up in east London and has been Deaf since birth. She was the first deaf student at RADA. Since graduating, theatre includes: Othello (The Watermill Theatre); The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time (NT/Frantic Assembly Tour); The Living Newspaper (The Royal Court); The New Tomorrow (The Young Vic); The Beauty Parade (Wales Millennium Centre); As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe); Emilia (Shakespeare’s Globe/ West End); Jubilee (Lyric, Hammersmith/ Manchester Royal Exchange); The Greatest Wealth (The Old Vic); Herons (Lyric, Hammersmith); Mother Courage and Her Children (National Theatre); and In Water I’m Weightless (National Theatre of Wales). Television includes: The Chelsea Detective (2), Moving On, Two Doors Down (2), Shakespeare & Hathaway, Shetland, The Crown, Doctor Who, Mapp and Lucia, Moonstone, Marchlands, Midsomer Murders (2), Small World, Holby City, Casualty (2) and FM. Film includes: Name Me Lawand, Retreat (Sophie was awarded Best Actress Award, Clin d’Oeil Festival), My Christmas Angel, Confessions and Coming Home. She is co-founder of the Deaf & Hearing Ensemble Theatre Company, associate Artist for The Watermill Theatre, Pentabus Theatre and works as a consultant for several TV, Film and Theatre companies. Sophie had a lead role in Beethoven Can Hear You for BBC Radio 3 in 2020. Her essay for Radio 3 in 2020 for the Five Kinds of Beethoven series, was a critical success. It was accompanied by an animated transcript to increase accessibility.Writer and reader Sophie StoneRecording engineer Mat Clarke at Sonica StudiosSound designer Eloise WhitmoreProducers Polly Thomas and Mina AnwarA Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
A very personal essay series about communication, listening, performance and British Sign Language (BSL).Sophie Stone considers her own life, career as an actor and identity as a deaf person, through the role of communication, both spoken and in BSL. Hers is an unusual and vivid life – she was sometimes homeless as a child, became a young single mother, broke new ground as the first deaf acting student at RADA, enjoys a successful actor career, and maintains strong activist roots.Each essay describes a formative stage in Sophie’s life and career, incorporating historical figures, the challenges and achievements of deaf and hard of hearing people since the 19th century and her own personal experience. Essay 2: Forms of Communication Sophie looks at different forms of communication, and how her relationship to sounds and her other senses and has shaped her work as a deaf actor. She talks about the challenges and possibilities of shaping a more authentic representation of disability on stage and screen. The essay explores the ways deaf artists have perceived their own deafness and how this impacts their own creativity.Listen Harder broadcast on BBC Radio 3 will be accompanied by an animated transcript and BSL translation on BBC Sounds website, increasing accessibility.Sophie Stone is a leading actor who grew up in east London and has been deaf since birth. She was the first deaf student at RADA. Since graduating, theatre includes: Othello (The Watermill Theatre); The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time (NT/Frantic Assembly Tour); The Living Newspaper (The Royal Court); The New Tomorrow (The Young Vic); The Beauty Parade (Wales Millennium Centre); As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe); Emilia (Shakespeare’s Globe/ West End); Jubilee (Lyric, Hammersmith/ Manchester Royal Exchange); The Greatest Wealth (The Old Vic); Herons (Lyric, Hammersmith); Mother Courage and Her Children (National Theatre); and In Water I’m Weightless (National Theatre of Wales). Television includes: The Chelsea Detective (2), Moving On, Two Doors Down (2), Shakespeare & Hathaway, Shetland, The Crown, Doctor Who, Mapp and Lucia, Moonstone, Marchlands, Midsomer Murders (2), Small World, Holby City, Casualty (2) and FM. Film includes: Name Me Lawand, Retreat (Sophie was awarded Best Actress Award, Clin d’Oeil Festival), My Christmas Angel, Confessions and Coming Home. She is co-founder of the Deaf & Hearing Ensemble Theatre Company, associate Artist for The Watermill Theatre, Pentabus Theatre and works as a consultant for several TV, Film and Theatre companies. Sophie had a lead role in Beethoven Can Hear You for BBC Radio 3 in 2020. Her essay for Radio 3 in 2020 for the Five Kinds of Beethoven series, was a critical success. It was accompanied by an animated transcript to increase accessibility.Writer and reader Sophie StoneRecording engineer Mat Clarke at Sonica StudiosSound designer Eloise WhitmoreProducers Polly Thomas and Mina AnwarA Naked Production for BBC Radio 3.
A very personal essay series about communication, listening, performance and British Sign Language (BSL).Sophie Stone considers her own life, career as an actor and identity as a deaf person, through the role of communication, both spoken and in BSL. Hers is an unusual and vivid life – she was sometimes homeless as a child, became a young single mother, broke new ground as the first deaf acting student at RADA, enjoys a successful actor career, and maintains strong activist roots.Each essay describes a formative stage in Sophie’s life and career, incorporating historical figures, the challenges and achievements of deaf and hard of hearing people since the 19th century and her own personal experience. Essay 1: Communication Withheld Sophie talks candidly about her early years as a deaf child, denied access to language and communication through an inadequate education system teaching oralism above any other form of communication. Sophie describes her rebellious teenage years and how through finding BSL and the language of theatre, she began to find deeper more authentic ways to communicate.Listen Harder broadcast on BBC Radio 3 will be accompanied by an animated transcript and BSL translation on BBC Sounds website, increasing accessibility.Sophie Stone is a leading actor who grew up in east London and has been deaf since birth. She was the first Deaf student at RADA. Since graduating, theatre includes: Othello (The Watermill Theatre); The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time (NT/Frantic Assembly Tour); The Living Newspaper (The Royal Court); The New Tomorrow (The Young Vic); The Beauty Parade (Wales Millennium Centre); As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe); Emilia (Shakespeare’s Globe/ West End); Jubilee (Lyric, Hammersmith/ Manchester Royal Exchange); The Greatest Wealth (The Old Vic); Herons (Lyric, Hammersmith); Mother Courage and Her Children (National Theatre); and In Water I’m Weightless (National Theatre of Wales). Television includes: The Chelsea Detective (2), Moving On, Two Doors Down (2), Shakespeare & Hathaway, Shetland, The Crown, Doctor Who, Mapp and Lucia, Moonstone, Marchlands, Midsomer Murders (2), Small World, Holby City, Casualty (2) and FM. Film includes: Name Me Lawand, Retreat (Sophie was awarded Best Actress Award, Clin d’Oeil Festival), My Christmas Angel, Confessions and Coming Home. She is co-founder of the Deaf & Hearing Ensemble Theatre Company, associate Artist for The Watermill Theatre, Pentabus Theatre and works as a consultant for several TV, Film and Theatre companies. Sophie had a lead role in Beethoven Can Hear You for BBC Radio 3 in 2020. Her essay for Radio 3 in 2020 for the Five Kinds of Beethoven series, was a critical success. It was accompanied by an animated transcript to increase accessibility.Writer and reader Sophie StoneRecording engineer Mat Clarke at Sonica StudiosSound designer Eloise WhitmoreProducers Polly Thomas and Mina AnwarA Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
The BBC has had a powerful influence on our musical taste, and in this BBC centenary year, Nicholas Kenyon, a former controller of Radio 3 and director of the Proms, delves into the archives to explore the BBC’s role in reviving the centuries of early music from before the 18th century.
In his final essay, Kenyon looks at how in the early 1970s, the popularity of medieval and renaissance music increased hugely with the success of the Early Music Consort led by the dynamic David Munrow. He became a key figure in the BBC’s broadcasting on Radio 3 with his eclectic series of short programmes called Pied Piper, and his colleague Christopher Hogwood presented The Young Idea, similarly mixing new and old. Then the emphasis in the revival of early music shifted from simply rediscovering the music of the past and playing it on modern instruments, to reinventing the ways of playing that music in line with historical evidence. Hogwood’s Academy of Ancient Music led the way with many broadcasts, and recordings in period style were soon high in the charts with Pavarotti. Early music had entered the mainstream of our musical life.
Presented by Nicholas Kenyon Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
The BBC has had a powerful influence on our musical taste, and in this BBC centenary year, Nicholas Kenyon, a former controller of Radio 3 and director of the Proms, delves into the archives to explore the BBC’s role in reviving the centuries of early music from before the 18th century.
Today Kenyon explores how in the creative years of the 1950s and 1960s, the revival of early music had a sense of adventure; new orchestras were established like the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields which explored the repertory in broadcasts and recordings. He highlights the work of three contrasted pioneers: Imogen Holst, who programmed concerts of medieval music at Aldeburgh, promoted by the BBC Transcription Service; Denis Stevens, the musicologist and conductor who broadcast and worked for the BBC Third Programme but became a hugely controversial figure because of his argumentative nature; and William Glock, who became the BBC’s Controller of Music in 1959 and transformed the repertory of the Proms, welcoming in a whole range of earlier music that had never been heard before at the Proms.
Presented by Nicholas Kenyon Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
The BBC has had a powerful influence on our musical taste, and in this BBC centenary year, Nicholas Kenyon, a former controller of Radio 3 and director of the Proms, delves into the archives to explore the BBC’s role in reviving the centuries of early music from before the 18th century.
In his third essay, Kenyon explores how the launch of the BBC’s cultural Third Programme in 1946 rapidly advanced the revival of early music on the BBC. From Alfred Deller singing Purcell in the opening concert of the network, to huge and difficult undertakings like the History in Sound of European Music, the Third supported the scholarly exploration of earlier repertories. Leading figures on the staff were experts in early music, and worked with a new generation of emerging performers who were interested in performing the music of the past: Julian Bream on the lute and George Malcolm on harpsichord, Neville Marriner on the violin, and Arnold Goldsborough conducting chamber orchestras. In the title of one 1948 series featuring the violinist Norbert Brainin, leader of the Amadeus Quartet, they were creating ‘new life for old music’.
Presented by Nicholas Kenyon Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
The BBC has had a powerful influence on our musical taste, and in this BBC centenary year, Nicholas Kenyon, a former controller of Radio 3 and director of the Proms, delves into the archives to explore the BBC’s role in reviving the centuries of early music from before the 18th century. In five programmes he looks at the rare repertory which the BBC broadcast, from its small beginnings in the 1920s to its acceptance in the mainstream during the 1970s. Drawing on entertaining and illuminating extracts from the BBC archives, with original music recordings, Kenyon shows the way in which early music and period-style performance gradually became part of our musical consciousness and an essential part of our listening.
In his second essay, Kenyon explores how by the 1930s the BBC had become a powerful influence on national taste and there were strong voices urging it to do more for British music. In 1934 it broadcast a 13-week series of English music ‘From plainsong to Purcell’ curated by the scholar, conductor and editor Sir Richard Terry. He argued for ancient music on the grounds that ‘our forefathers were human beings like ourselves. Music which held human appeal for them cannot be devoid of interest for us.’ Terry edited music for broadcast which had never been broadcast before, and some of which, like the sixty secular madrigals of Peter Philips, had never been heard in modern times. Early music came to form a part of national ceremonial like the Coronation of George VI in 1937, with the BBC leading the way in its celebratory concerts.
Presented by Nicholas Kenyon Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
The BBC has had a powerful influence on our musical taste, and in this BBC centenary year, Nicholas Kenyon, a former controller of Radio 3 and director of the Proms, delves into the archives to explore the BBC’s role in reviving the centuries of early music from before the 18th century. In five programmes he looks at the rare repertory which the BBC broadcast, from its small beginnings in the 1920s to its acceptance in the mainstream during the 1970s. Drawing on entertaining and illuminating extracts from the BBC archives, with original music recordings, Kenyon shows the way in which early music and period-style performance gradually became part of our musical consciousness and an essential part of our listening.
In his first essay, Kenyon explores how in the 1920s there was a new approach to performing the music of past, which tried to recreate the scale and sound of the music when it was written. Pioneers on the radio included Percy Warlock (pen-name of the composer Philip Heseltine) who broadcast ‘Old Ayres and Keyboard Music’, and claimed that ‘there is no such thing as progress in music. A good work of 300 years ago is just as perfect now as it was on the day it was written’. The quirky Violet Gordon Woodhouse, who famously lived with four men, was the first to record and broadcast on the harpsichord. The violinist André Mangeot, who was fictionalised in a book by Christopher Isherwood, worked with Warlock to revive viol music of Henry Purcell from 1680. But there were internal BBC controversies as to whether this early music was of real interest to listeners.
Presented by Nicholas Kenyon Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
Once upon a time, a Shakespeare play on BBC Radio would inevitably feature actors with perfect received pronunciation. Now that has all changed. Actor Samuel West, no stranger to Shakespearian roles, is joined by Dr Andrea Smith to hear how horizons have widened and productions enriched by new voices and new settings for the plays. We'll hear about plays set in India, plays recorded in Welsh, those with characters clearly from Africa or the Caribbean and voices that are far from the cut glass of RP.
Presented by Samuel West and Dr Andrea Smith Produced by Susan Marling A Just Radio Production
By the time the BBC had come of age in the 70s and 80s, radio production had become a creative art. The Radiophonic Workshop could famously transport listeners to imagined worlds and this was certainly the case with productions of Shakespeare. Actor Samuel West and Dr Andrea Smith celebrate the creativity that gave us everything from the magic of Puck and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream to battle scenes and the horrors of the gouging of eyes in King Lear.
Presented by Samuel West and Dr Andrea Smith Produced by Susan Marling A Just Radio Production
Actor Samuel West, who has played many Shakespearian roles - some of them on the radio - is joined by Dr Andrea Smith as they take a trip through 100 years (nearly) of Shakespeare on the 'wireless'.
Today they focus on one returning character - Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. This is without doubt the most popular play and there are wonderful very early clips of actors such as Fay Compton taking the role in 1944. We hear how sometimes the part of 14-year-old Juliet was taken by an actor old enough to be her grandmother and about the snobbery attached to the idea of how exactly Shakespeare should be spoken.
Presented by Samuel West and Dr Andrea Smith Produced by Susan Marling A Just Radio Production
Actor Samuel West is joined by Dr Andrea Smith in a journey through 100 years (nearly) of Shakespeare on the radio. You might think that the years of the Second World War would have given listeners a thirst for history plays and great stirring speeches such as those in Henry V. But in fact it was pastoral comedy that was most popular - a reminder perhaps of the idealised, imagined Britain that people were fighting to protect. We hear too how production techniques gained sophistication and that theatricality slowly gave way to realism.
Presented by Samuel West and Dr Andrea Smith Produced by Susan Marling A Just Radio Production
Soon after the BBC was born came the ambition to broadcast Shakespeare plays on 'the wireless'. Theatres refused to allow recording of stage versions so the BBC had to go it alone. The BBC's first Director-General, Lord Reith, thought radio well suited to the task of producing Shakespeare:
‘The plays of Shakespeare fulfil to a great extent the requirements of wireless, for he had little in the way of setting and scenery, and relied chiefly on the vigour of his plot and the conviction of the speakers to convey his ideas. It is not at all unlikely that wireless will render a highly important service in popularising Shakespeare.’
Our series looks at how well Reith's ambition was realised. We have brilliant clips from some of the country's best loved actors who have performed Shakespeare on the radio as productions grew more sophisticated, as acting styles changed and as radio's production values allowed the listener to experience Shakespeare's world in the most imaginative way.
Presented by Samuel West and Dr Andrea Smith Produced by Susan Marling A Just Radio Production
Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’s work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them.
Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series gives similar treatment to Vaughan Williams.
Our essayists share their unexpected perspective on Vaughan Williams’s work, taking it outside the standard ‘English pastoral’ box, in a series of accessible essays, part of the Vaughan Williams season on Radio 3.
Essay 5: Amanda Dalton – poet/dramatist
As a teenager in a 1970s working-class Coventry family, Amanda Dalton had a flamboyant favourite Uncle Gordon. He introduced Amanda to Vaughan Williams through embarrassing trips to the record shop after school. Amanda remembers the utter mortification of walking through Coventry city centre in her school uniform, Uncle Gordon sweeping along in a dramatically, her schoolmates giggling behind them. Once at the shop, Uncle Gordon waxed lyrical about his favourite composers. He bought Amanda a record of the Sea Symphony. She took it home, played it and was transported. It has remained significant to her ever since, summoning up her childhood, culture and class and what it is to be an outsider.
Amanda Dalton is a poet and playwright, tutor, theatre artist and consultant. She is currently a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, Associate Artist at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre and a Visiting Teaching Fellow (Script and Poetry) at MMU’s Writing School. Amanda has two poetry collections with Bloodaxe, How To Disappear and Stray, and Notes on Water came out in 2022. Her poetry has won awards and prizes in major competitions including the National Poetry Competition and she has been selected as one of the UK’s top 20 “Next Generation Poets”. Amanda writes regularly for BBC Radio 3 and 4 – original writing includes a number of original dramas and adaptations. For most of her career, she also worked in the worlds of Education and Creative Engagement. After 13 years as an English and Drama teacher and Deputy Head in comprehensive schools in Leicestershire, she left the formal education sector to be a Centre Director for the Arvon Foundation before becoming a senior leader at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, working for 18 years in the field of creative learning.
Writer and reader Amanda Dalton Sound designer Paul Cargill Producers Polly Thomas and Yusra Warsama Exec producer Eloise Whitmore
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’ work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them.
Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series gives similar treatment to Vaughan Williams.
Our essayists share their unexpected perspective on Vaughan Williams’ work, taking it outside the standard ‘English pastoral’ box, in a series of accessible essays, part of the Vaughan Williams season on Radio 3.
Luke Turner – nature writer and music journalist The Wasps – Aristophanic Suite was an EMI and John Player Special cassette tape that Luke’s family listened to on long car journeys in the 1980s. Obviously the cassette opens with The Lark Ascending, but like a pop smash hit drawing your attention to an album, that piece was merely the introduction to The Wasps - Aristophanic Suite on the second side, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley. It became the soundtrack to Luke’s growing awareness of the English landscape as it passed by the windows, not in a simple, bucolic way, but the complexities of the place, the baked bean orange of traffic lights on the M62 over the Yorkshire Moors, the strange Cold War military installations that seemed to be everywhere, motorway reservations and the endless traffic jams around the Kings Lynn Roundabout. The piece also captures for Luke an awareness of how music works, how it combines with emotion and experience to become integral to memory, how something called The Wasps could have next to nothing to do with the insects, how his young mind could place onto this music whatever his imagination brought forward. It feels like many of his generation and certainly in his profession as a music journalist see Vaughan Williams as quite an establishment figure or quite conservative, but The Wasps was psychedelic music that made inroads into Luke’s imagination, and unleashed the possibilities of sound connecting to place. Luke Turner is a writer and editor. He co-founded the influential music website The Quietus where he runs a regular podcast and radio show. He has contributed to the Guardian, Dazed & Confused, Vice, NME, Q, Mojo, Monocle, Nowness and Somesuch Stories, among other publications. His first book, Out of the Woods, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Born in Bradford, he lives in London.
Writer and reader Luke Turner Sound designer Paul Cargill Producers Polly Thomas and Yusra Warsama Exec producer Eloise Whitmore
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’s work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them.
Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series gives similar treatment to Vaughan Williams.
Our essayists share their unexpected perspective on Vaughan Williams’s work, taking it outside the standard ‘English pastoral’ box, in a series of accessible essays, part of the Vaughan Williams season on Radio 3.
Essay 3: Adrian McNally - producer/arranger/pianist for The Unthanks Self-taught and raised in a South Yorkshire pit village, Adrian McNally is pianist, composer and band leader for The Unthanks. From humble beginnings to scoring for his band to perform with Charles Hazelwood's Army of Generals, Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band and the BBC Concert Orchestra for The Proms, McNally has sought confidence and inspiration along the way from Ralph Vaughan Williams. He finds kinship in a quest to prove that the people's music is anything but common, to draw out and elevate the beauty and truth present in those folk songs fondly but unfairly known as low culture. In his essay, McNally looks at VW's thoughts on National Music and the inescapable relationship between place, community and creativity. At the centre of his essay will be Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. It was born out of a tune Vaughan Williams was preoccupied with - a love letter to something that already existed, that inspired him to make something more.
Self-taught and raised in a South Yorkshire pit village, Adrian McNally is pianist, composer, record producer and band leader for The Unthanks. From humble beginnings to scoring for performances with Charles Hazelwood's Army Of Generals, the Royal Liverpool Phil, Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band and the BBC Concert Orchestra for The Proms.
Writer and reader Adrian McNally Sound designer Paul Cargill Producers Polly Thomas and Yusra Warsama Exec producer Eloise Whitmore
Photographic Image by Sarah Mason
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’s work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them.
Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series gives similar treatment to Vaughan Williams.
Our essayists share their unexpected perspective on Vaughan Williams’s work, taking it outside the standard ‘English pastoral’ box, in a series of accessible essays, part of the Vaughan Williams season on Radio 3.
The Lark Ascending is Dr Rommi Smith’s favourite piece by Vaughan Williams. It has accompanied her all over the world in her travels as a poet and teacher, reminding her of her Englishness and her home, even when as a Black woman, she is often not ‘seen’ as being English. The piece is a key part of her English DNA. This was brought home to her vividly when the violinist Tai Murray, a Black American woman, played the piece during the Proms in 2018. There was subsequent racist twitter comment, saying she had only been ‘let in’ because she is Black. Dr Rommi Smith considers her own connection to The Lark Ascending and how who performs it is significant.
Dr Rommi Smith is an award-winning poet, playwright, theatre-maker, performer and librettist. A three-time BBC Writer-in-residence, she is the inaugural British Parliamentary Writer-in-Residence and inaugural 21st century Poet-in-Residence for Keats’ House, Hampstead. A Visiting Scholar at City University New York (CUNY), she has presented her research and writing at institutions including: THE SEGAL THEATRE, THE SCHOMBURG CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN BLACK CULTURE and CITY COLLEGE NEW YORK. Rommi’s performance at THE SCHWERNER WRITERS’ SERIES in New York was at the invitation of Tyehimba Jess, Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry. Rommi is a Doctor of Philosophy in English and Theatre. Her academic writing was first published by NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS as part of the groundbreaking book IMAGINING QUEER METHODS (2019). Her poetry is included in publications ranging from OUT OF BOUNDS (Bloodaxe) to MORE FIYA (Canongate). She is recipient of a HEDGEBROOK Fellowship (Cottage: Waterfall, 2014) and is a winner of THE NORTHERN WRITERS’ PRIZE for Poetry 2019 (chosen by the poet Don Paterson). She was recently awarded a prestigious CAVE CANEM fellowship in the US. Rommi was selected a SPHINX30 playwright; a prestigious programme of professional mentoring for – and by - contemporary women playwrights, led by legendary company, SPHINX THEATRE. Rommi is a contributor to BBC radio programmes including: FRONT ROW, THE VERB and the radio documentary INVISIBLE MAN: PARABLE FOR OUR TIMES?, marking 70 years since the publication of Ralph Ellison’s iconic novel. Rommi is poet-in-residence for the WORDSWORTH TRUST, Grasmere. www.rommi-smith.co.uk Twitter: @rommismith Soundcloud: RommiSmith Instagram: Rommi Smith
Writer and reader Rommi Smith Sound designer Paul Cargill Producers Polly Thomas and Yusra Warsama Exec producer Eloise Whitmore
Photographic Image by Lizzie Coombes
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’s work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them.
Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series gives similar treatment to Vaughan Williams.
Our essayists share their unexpected perspective on Vaughan Williams’s work, taking it outside the standard ‘English pastoral’ box, in a series of accessible essays, part of the Vaughan Williams season on Radio 3.
Essay 1: Clare Shaw – poet/dramatist
Clare considers the role that Vaughan Williams’ setting to music of the Welsh hymn Rhosymedre has played in their life. They first played it as a teenager on the viola, for the Burnley Youth Orchestra. It symbolised an expression of beauty, love and hope, a sense of voice and connection to place and possibility... It is also that rare moment in music where the viola gets to carry the melody. Then, in Clare’s fifties, when their mother (a cellist) died, the piece became a conduit for overwhelming grief, a way of holding the horrific and sublime experience of being present at the moment of death. Clare came home after their mother had died and played Rhosymedre, then wrote this poem about her and the music.
Clare Shaw is a poet and performer, tutor and trainer. They have four poetry collections from Bloodaxe: Straight Ahead (2006), Head On (2012), Flood (2018) and Towards a General Theory of Love (2022). Clare is a regular tutor with a range of literary organisations - including the Poetry School, the Wordsworth Trust and the Arvon Foundation - delivering creative writing courses, workshops and mentoring sessions in a variety of different settings, with individuals at all levels of ability, confidence and experience. They work with the Royal Literary Fund and the Writing Project, supporting the development of writing skills in academic settings and workplaces. Clare is the co-director of the Kendal Poetry Festival - and involved in a range of innovative projects with artists and practitioners in other disciplines, including psychology, visual arts and music. Clare is also a mental health educator. All their work is underpinned by a deep faith in language: words have the power to harm and help us, and powerful language can transform us as individuals, communities and societies.
Writer and reader Clare Shaw Sound designer Paul Cargill Producers Polly Thomas and Yusra Warsama Exec producer Eloise Whitmore
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
Poet, editor and writer Alvin Pang loves Singapore. It’s just that he doesn’t necessarily want to be in Singapore. He loves it, but the cause for this is a wanderlust and a need for movement which has given him an instinct to push down walls. He explores how the Singapore mindset of the convivial host can set a writer in good stead for a creative life.
Presented by Alvin Pang Produced by Kevin Core
Anil Pradhan says he is defined by his “inbetween-ness”. As a gay, Indian, Nepali poet he considers the strange duality - that while English may be linked with the colonial mindset that defined India – it is also a language that allows him to express his true self. This episode was recorded at the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival in Birmingham.
Presented by Anil Pradhan Produced by Kevin Core
Isabelle Baafi has a unique take on healthcare, forged by the Caribbean origins of a succession of female healers in her family. Reaching back in time from her own childhood visit to A&E, Isabelle explores her mother’s adage – that to heal someone is to change their destiny.
Presented by Isabelle Baafi Produced by Kevin Core
Roy McFarlane, former Birmingham Laureate, recalls the mask worn by his Jamaican late father – a mask designed to help him integrate into his new UK home. But did it work? Roy recalls the dignity of a man who worked hard to put money on the table – and encyclopaedias on the shelves. His essay was recorded at the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in Birmingham.
This essay contains strong racist language which some may find offensive.
Presented by Roy McFarlane Produced by Kevin Core
The Indian writer and dancer Tishani Doshi considers the impact of her mother’s upbringing thousands of miles away in the UK and how her imagination returns to the exotic idea - of a row of small terraced houses in the seemingly endless summer nights of Wales. Her essay was recorded at the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in Birmingham.
Presented by Tishani Doshi Produced by Kevin Core
Poet and writer Casey Bailey is returning to Birmingham after a holiday and reliving memories of his childhood in Nechells.
Casey is the Birmingham Poet Laureate 2020-2022. He’s a writer, performer and educator born and raised in Nechells, Birmingham. Casey has performed nationally and internationally, spent time on a residency with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His debut poetry pamphlet ‘Waiting at Bloomsbury Park’ was published in 2017. His first full collection of poetry ‘Adjusted’ in 2018 was followed by his second collection Please Do Not Touch in 2021.
Producers: Rosie Boulton and Melvin Rickarby A Must Try Softer Production A co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and the Space with funding from Arts Council England.
Poet Naush Sabah is re-visiting her childhood home in Sparkbrook, Birmingham
Naush is a poet, writer, editor, critic and educator based in the West Midlands. In 2019, she co-founded the Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal where she is currently Editor and Publishing Director. Naush also co-founded Pallina Press where she is Editor-at-Large and she currently serves as a trustee at Poetry London. Her writing has appeared in The Poetry Review, the TLS, PN Review, The Dark Horse, Modern Poetry in Translation, and elsewhere. She was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s 2021 Sky Arts Writers Award. Her debut pamphlet Litanies was published by Guillemot Press in November 2021. She's a visiting lecturer in creative writing at Birmingham City University.
Producers: Rosie Boulton and Melvin Rickarby A Must Try Softer Production A co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and the Space with funding from Arts Council England.
Writer Professor Thomas Glave has been in London and is returning on a train at night to his home city of Birmingham.
Thomas was born in the Bronx and grew up there and in Kingston, Jamaica. His work has earned many honours, including the Lambda Literary Award in 2005 and 2008, an O. Henry Prize, a Fine Arts Center in Provincetown Fellowship, and a Fulbright fellowship to Jamaica. He's the author of Whose Song? and Other Stories, Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent, The Torturer's Wife, and Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh. Thomas has been Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor at MIT, a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Warwick, a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge and writer-in-residence at the University of Liverpool. He lives in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham.
Producers: Rosie Boulton and Melvin Rickarby A Must Try Softer Production A co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and the Space with funding from Arts Council England.
Writer Dr Shahed Yousaf is driving home to Birmingham from a very demanding day at work in prison.
Shahed is a GP who works in prisons, substance misuse centres and with the homeless community. He has just published a memoir: Stitched Up. He spends his time running between emergencies - from overdoses to assaults, from cell fires to suicides - with one hand always hovering over the panic button. He was shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Prize 2016 and commended for the Faber & Faber FAB Prize 2017. Shahed won a place on to the Writing West Midlands Room 204 Mentoring scheme and the Middle Way Mentoring Project in 2019.
Producers: Rosie Boulton and Melvin Rickarby A Must Try Softer Production A co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and the Space with funding from Arts Council England.
Writer Helen Cross is remembering how clubbing in 90s Birmingham and an encounter with an oil painting in Birmingham's Museum and Art Gallery led her to feel at home in this city.
Helen is the author of novels, stories, radio plays and screenplays. Her first novel, My Summer of Love, won a Betty Trask Award and became a BAFTA award-winning feature film. Her recent work includes a BBC Afternoon Play The Return of Rowena The Wonderful and a five-part audio drama series: English Rose. Helen teaches creative writing at various international venues, at UK universities and on many online and community courses. Helen lives in Kings Heath, Birmingham.
Producers: Rosie Boulton and Melvin Rickarby A Must Try Softer Production A co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and the Space with funding from Arts Council England.
For the final essay in the series, architectural designer Christopher Laing gives a personal account of how he started Signstrokes, which introduces standardised sign language for architecture. Deaf people are not new to architecture, however they face significant barriers because the sign language vocabulary of the profession is not standardised and lacks terms to express architectural concepts uncommon in everyday language.
Christopher, drawing upon his own difficult experience at university, where he suffered the consequence of few deaf people before him studying architecture anywhere. The knock-on effect was that very few British Sign Language interpreters knew architectural terms or context, having never worked in the field before. Christopher had to take on the additional responsibility, on top of his degree, of helping the university interpreters familiarise themselves with the jargon and signs to use when interpreting the lectures.
Christopher collaborated with Adolfs Kristapsons to create the corpus dictionary of architect signs that everyone could use. Christopher shares with us the long, laborious process of creating new signs. Christopher asserts that not only are these signs useful for the deaf community - but actually seeing what words mean, helps everyone understand each other. Christopher hopes that Signstrokes will inspire other deaf professionals to persevere with their chosen dreams; and show how it is possible to get creative with jargon. Christopher maintains that ultimately we all want to understand the world we live in, and each other, and language shouldn’t be a barrier to that.
A Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3.
Dr Robert Adam is an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University and a lecturer in Linguistics, British Sign Language and Deaf Studies.
In the course of his essay, Robert asks, who are the arbiters of British Sign Language? How can its evolution be managed?
Robert shares how fewer deaf children are learning British Sign Language at school, and more are now learning it later in life, as young adults. From an outsider’s perspective this may seem relatively harmless, but this language deprivation and dispersal of deaf people from each other, means that deaf children do not get the chance to develop extensive peer groups, or learn to sign from a fluent or native signer.
Robert goes on to explore the colonial history of British Sign Language and how there is no single country that ‘owns’ the one language, and British Sign Language is certainly not owned solely by the British Deaf community. He talks wryly of the irony of deaf people in the UK continuing to struggle with equal access to information and participation in broader society and yet BSL is a colonising language.
Robert talks frankly of how on various platforms we are now witnessing astonishing bastardisations of sign language, to the point that a BSL Watchdog has recently been established by a group of concerned deaf people. There are also concerns about sign language gradually being eroded as new generations of deaf children are denied access to it through what Robert sees as misguided attempts at so-called “inclusion” in education. Will so-called, ‘proper sign language’ become a thing of the past?
A Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3.
Deepa Shastri, an actress, sign song performer and British Sign Language consultant.
Deepa explores how Deaf culture and sign language being represented in the arts is so important to the deaf community but also how the arts and sign language naturally go hand in hand - due to the visual and expressive nature of sign language. Back in the 80s, when Marlee Matlin became the first deaf Oscar winner for her performance in 'Children of a Lesser God', things were about to become very exciting for the deaf arts.
Fast forward a few decades, Deepa shares how we are now entering a new era where deaf people are being represented on screen and on stage with the likes of Rose Ayling-Ellis picking up the Glitterball, Sophie Stone appearing in Dr. Who and Nadeem Islam making waves on series such as ITV's 'The Bay'. Theatre companies such as Deafinitely Theatre were and continue to be the breeding ground of deaf talent.
Within the context of exploring Deafinitely Theatre's work, Deepa explores the complex process of translating Shakespeare plays to British Sign Language and how BSL has its limitations; we do not have signs for every word that exists in the English Dictionary which makes translation difficult. Still, the positives outweigh the limitations. Sign language is very poetic which bodes well for Shakespeare plays in sign language.
Deepa concludes that she believes we're entering the golden age for deaf performers as sign language and deaf performers are appearing on all platforms to show the beauty of sign language and how it elevate a performance or a production.
A Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3.
Tina Kelberman shares her experience of growing up in a large deaf Jewish family. Her family has inherited deafness for six generations now and are probably also the biggest Deaf Jewish family in the UK. Whilst their culture is steeped in history, spanning back almost two centuries, it's been a rocky road for them - as Tina shares. She hated the feeling of people watching her family communicate in sign language. Her parents also hated it and so did her grandparents- to the point where their signs were smaller and more secretive when out in public. 70 years on, not much has changed. But Tina talks of how we are bolder these days, and how her own children stare right back until the people staring look away.
Tina talks candidly about how sign language is like any other language and so it evolves. Tina gives us examples of the evolution such as the telephone - how signs evolved from the candlestick phone to the mobile phone as we know it today. Tina used to correct her mother’s signing, just like all kids groan at their parents' seemingly outdated or uncool words.
With her children being two of the last deaf, Jewish people from a large deaf family, she worries about what the future holds for them. Tina admits that her children don’t know the Jewish signs for Hanukkah and Passover, or understand why these words are signed as they are. She wonders if it is maybe it is time for her to take them to the Jewish Deaf Association to remind them of their heritage and to use signs that have been passed on to them.
A Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3.
Dr Robert Adam is an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University and a lecturer in Linguistics, British Sign Language and Deaf Studies.
In his essay, 'Sign Language through the Ages', Robert explores the rich and layered history of British Sign Language. He recalls the first time he read a piece of deaf history - his father’s school published ‘Utmost for the Highest’ for its centenary in 1962, and was full of black and white photos of stern looking people and impressive edifices. The faces and names of long-dead deaf people leapt out at Robert and made him wonder what was life like for those deaf people then? They achieved so much but would have had to find their way in times where there were no anti-discrimination laws.
Robert shares with us how Deaf people and sign languages have existed since antiquity. Quintus Pedius, a painter in the first century AD, is the first recorded deaf person in history. The first clear record of sign language being used was a wedding in Leicester in 1575.
So why is sign language still viewed as a 'new' language by some? Robert shares the story of the fated Milan Congress held in September 1880 which was attended by mostly hearing educators from around the world who resolved to stop the use of sign language in the classroom. After Milan, sign language went 'underground' till the 20th century where it began to gain traction again - largely due to programmes such as 'Vision On' and 'See Hear' which graced our screens.
Within the context of the historical discourse, Robert concludes that deaf people are pioneers in their field and their work has had an impact on our lives today.
A Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3.
Among the 20th-century's most significant English-language poets, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is often regarded as one of literature’s great pessimists, a writer who described postwar Britain and the mores of modernity with a gloomy cynicism bordering on the fanatical. Dismissive of notions of god and religion, drawn to failures of human communication, he is a figure reluctantly moored to the meaninglessness of the quotidian. And yet, from such positions of despair, his poetry often reaches for the divine: he is also a soul in search of something beyond the seen, whose best poems reach for the numinous, celebrating moments of mystery and encounters with “unfenced existence”.
In a week of essays marking his centenary year, five contemporary poets each take a short poem by Larkin as the starting point for an exploration into their own attitudes to faith, belief and the spiritual. In this concluding episode, Helen Mort visits her father in hospital in an essay on mortality, meaning and mystery, inspired by Larkin's verse 'Going'.
Writer and reader: Helen Mort
Producer: Phil Smith
A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3
Among the 20th-century's most significant English-language poets, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is often regarded as one of literature’s great pessimists, a writer who described postwar Britain and the mores of modernity with a gloomy cynicism bordering on the fanatical. Dismissive of notions of god and religion, drawn to failures of human communication, he is a figure reluctantly moored to the meaninglessness of the quotidian. And yet, from such positions of despair, his poetry often reaches for the divine: he is also a soul in search of something beyond the seen, whose best poems reach for the numinous, celebrating moments of mystery and encounters with “unfenced existence”.
In a week of essays to mark his centenary year, five UK poets each take a short poem by Larkin as the starting point for an exploration into their own attitudes to faith, belief and the spiritual. In this fourth episode, Vidyan Ravinthiran discusses the religious role played by the NHS in an essay on collective faith and private ritual, inspired by a close reading of Larkin’s poem 'Ambulances'.
Writer and reader: Vidyan Ravinthiran
Producer: Phil Smith
A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3
Among the 20th-century's most significant English-language poets, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is often regarded as one of literature’s great pessimists, a writer who described postwar Britain and the mores of modernity with a gloomy cynicism bordering on the fanatical. Dismissive of notions of god and religion, drawn to failures of human communication, he is a figure reluctantly moored to the meaninglessness of the quotidian. And yet, from such positions of despair, his poetry often reaches for the divine: he is also a soul in search of something beyond the seen, whose best poems reach for the numinous, celebrating moments of mystery and encounters with “unfenced existence”.
In a week of essays marking his centenary year, five contemporary poets each take a short poem by Larkin as the starting point for an exploration into their own attitudes to faith, belief and the spiritual. In this third episode, Jean Sprackland returns to the brewery town of Burton upon Trent, home to Saint Modwen, in a meditation on water as a miraculous and mundane presence in her life.
Writer and reader: Jean Sprackland
Producer: Phil Smith
A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3
Among the 20th century's most significant English-language poets, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is often regarded as one of literature’s great pessimists, a writer who described postwar Britain and the mores of modernity with a gloomy cynicism bordering on the fanatical. Dismissive of notions of god and religion, drawn to failures of human communication, he is a figure reluctantly moored to the meaninglessness of the quotidian. And yet, from such positions of despair, his poetry often reaches for the divine: he is also a soul in search of something beyond the seen, whose best poems reach for the numinous, celebrating moments of mystery and encounters with “unfenced existence”.
In a week of essays marking his centenary year, five contemporary poets each take a short poem by Larkin as the starting point for an exploration into their own attitudes to faith, belief and the spiritual. In this second episode, the Northern Irish poet Sinéad Morrissey offers a lyrical essay on the lost Communist faith of her Belfast childhood, responding to Philip Larkin’s poem Absences.
Writer and reader: Sinéad Morrissey
Producer: Phil Smith
A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3
Amongst the 20th century's most significant English-language poets, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is often regarded as one of literature’s great pessimists, a writer who described postwar Britain and the mores of modernity with a gloomy cynicism bordering on the fanatical. Dismissive of notions of god and religion, drawn to failures of human communication, he is a figure reluctantly moored to the meaninglessness of the quotidian. And yet, from such positions of despair, his poetry often reaches for the divine: he is also a soul in search of something beyond the seen, whose best poems reach for the numinous, celebrating moments of mystery and encounters with “unfenced existence”.
In a week of essays marking his centenary year, five contemporary poets each take a short poem by Larkin as the starting point for an exploration of their own attitudes to faith, belief and the spiritual. To begin the series, the London-born poet Raymond Antrobus responds to Larkin’s 'The Mower' with an essay on kindness, care and moments of epiphany. Weaving together accounts of his grandfather’s church sermons with reflections on the poetic craft, Antrobus considers how the certainty of his own atheism has shifted as he entered his thirties.
Writer and reader: Raymond Antrobus
Producer: Phil Smith
A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3
Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
Today, Diana Souhami steps into the tomb of Radclyffe Hall in London’s Highgate Cemetery, where The Well of Loneliness author resides with her lover, her lover’s husband and their dog Tulip – an aptly unconventional set-up in death as in life.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
Today Paul Muldoon recalls numerous pilgrimages to the rugged West Coast of Ireland, where the remains of WB Yeats may or may not be buried, as per his poetical final request.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
Today Lauren Elkin finds Oscar Wilde in Pere Lachaise, Paris - where the outsider in life overshadows in death the greats of French literature who jostle for space in the famous cemetery.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
From full stops to emojis, a Tudor letter to texting - how has the use of punctuation marks developed over the centuries? Florence Hazrat thinks about the way brackets help us understand the pandemic. The first parentheses appear in a 1399 manuscript by the Italian lawyer Coluccio Salutati, but - as her essay outlines - it took over 500 years for the sign born at the same time as the bracket, the exclamation mark (which printers rather aptly call “bang”) to find its true environment: the internet.
Florence Hazrat is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Sheffield. She is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
Xangô (the god of thunder) and Paso Ñañigo’, composed by the Cuban Moises Simons, were two of the numbers performed by Elsie Houston in the clubs of Paris in the 1920s. Also able to sing soprano in Portuguese, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian, Elsie's performances in Afro-Brazilian dialects chimed with the fashion for all things African. Adjoa Osei's essay traces Elsie's connections with Surrealist artists and writers, (there are photos of her taken by Man Ray), and looks at how she used her mixed race heritage to navigate her way through society and speak out for African-inspired arts.
Adjoa Osei is a researcher based at Trinity College, Cambridge. She was selected as a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. You can hear her discussing the career of another singer Rita Montaner in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010q8b and taking part in this Free Thinking discussion From Blackface to Beyoncé https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tnlt
Producer: Ruth Watts
Africa's first filmmakers boldly revealed how, and why, colonialism lived on after the independences. Sarah Jilani takes a closer look at the works of Ousmane Sembène and Souleymane Cissé. The Malian director's 1982 film Finye (the Bambara word for wind) considers students as the winds of change, whilst Sembène's Mandabi, made in 1968, takes its title from a Wolof word deriving from the French for a postal money order – le mandat postale. Adapting his own novel about the frustrations of bureaucracy, the Senegalese director made the decision to make the film in the Wolof language.
Sarah Jilani teaches at City, University of London and was chosen as a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which makes research into radio. You can hear her discussing another classic of African cinema on Free Thinking in this episode about Touki Bouki https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013js4 and Satyajit Ray's Indian Bengali drama Jalsaghar, which depicts a landlord who would prefer to listen to music than deal with his flood ravaged properties https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v9gj
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
In 1821, Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater paved the way for drug memoirs, but how do contemporary novelists help us see the global opium trade in a different way? Fariha Shaikh's essay looks at the novel An Insular Possession published in 1986 by Timothy Mo, and at Amitav Ghosh's trilogy which began in 2008 with Sea of Poppies. She also quotes from her researches into The Calcutta Review, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country and the book Tea and Coffee written by the campaigning vegetarian William Alcott as she make links between tea, sugar, opium, addiction and trade.
Dr Fariha Shaikh teaches in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham. She is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
What made him great? Celebrated as a military leader, Alexander took over an empire created by the Persians. Julia Hartley's essay looks at two examples of myth making about Alexander: The Persian Boy, a 1972 historical novel by the English writer Mary Renault and the Shānāmeh or ‘Book of Kings’, an epic written by the medieval Persian poet Abdolghassem Ferdowsi.
Julia Hartley lectures at King's College London. She was selected in 2021 as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can hear her in this Free Thinking discussion Dante's Visions https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zm9b and in another episode about Epic Iran, Lost Cities and Proust https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xlzh
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Sculptures like mouldy fruit, sea creatures that look like oil, blocks of ice carved from a melting glacier and transported to a gallery, reforesting a disused quarry: Vid Simoniti looks at different examples of environmental art and asks whether they create empathy with nature and inspire behaviour change or do we really need pictures of loft insulation and ground source heat pumps displayed on gallery walls?
Vid Simoniti lectures at the University of Liverpool. He hosted a series of podcasts Art Against the World for the Liverpool Biennial 2021. He was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can hear him taking part in this Free Thinking discussion about Who Needs Critics? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000w5f3
Producer: Luke Mulhall
An 1856 portrait shows a 40-year-old man from Benin who managed to secure his freedom after being captured. Dasalu was taken from Dahomey to Cuba, alongside over five hundred adults and children in the ship Grey Eagle. Once in Havana, he worked for the Count of Fernandina but managed to get a letter to a missionary Charles Gollmer back in Africa. Jake Subryan Richard's essay traces the way one man’s migrations reveal the shifting boundaries of slavery and freedom.
Jake Subryan Richards teaches at the London School of Economics and was chosen as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Council, which turns research into radio. You can hear him discussing his research in a Free Thinking episode called Dr Johnson's Circle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vq3w and in another episode looking at Ships and History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001626t
Producer: Ruth Watts
The discovery of goffering irons, the tools used to shape ruffs, by an archaeological dig in North America, gives us clues about the way the first English settlers lived. Lauren Working's essay looks at the symbolism of the Elizabethan fashion for ruffs. Now back in fashion on zoom, they were denounced by Puritans, shown off in portraits of explorers like Raleigh and Drake, and seen by the Chesapeake as a symbol of colonisation, whilst the starch was used for porridge at a time of scarcity and war.
Lauren Working teaches at the University of York and was chosen in 2021 as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can find another Essay by Lauren called Boy with a Pearl Earring https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014y52 and hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about The Botanical Past https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wlgv
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Images of Cyril and Methodios adorn libraries, universities, cathedrals and passport pages in Slavonic speaking countries from Bulgaria to Russia, North Macedonia to Ukraine. But the journeys undertaken as religious envoys by these inventors of the Cyrillic alphabet have led to competing claims and political disagreements. Mirela Ivanova's essay considers the complications of basing ideas about nationhood upon medieval history.
Mirela Ivanova teaches at the University of Sheffield and was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which turns research into radio. You can hear her discussing Sofia's main museum in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wc3p
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Comrade or "marra" in north east dialect, and the "dharma" or the way - were put together in a portmanteau word by poet Bill Martin (1925-2010). Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell reflects on this idea of Marradharma and what it offers to future generations growing up in the post-Brexit and post-industrial landscape of the north east. In his essay, Jake remembers the pilgrimage he made in 2016 carrying Bill Martin's ashes in a ram's horn from Sunderland (Martin was born in a nearby pit village) to Durham Cathedral.
Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at Newcastle University and was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can find him discussing ideas about darkness in a Free Thinking discussion recorded at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's After Dark festival, and looking at mining, coal and DH Lawrence https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xmjy
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
"Delight in disorder" was celebrated in a poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) and the long hair, flamboyant dress and embrace of earrings that made up Cavalier style has continued to exert influence as a gender fluid look. Lauren Working's essay considers examples ranging from Van Dyck portraits and plays by Aphra Behn to the advertising for the exhibition called Fashioning Masculinities which runs at the Victoria and Albert museum this spring.
Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear is at the V&A from March 19th 2022. Radio 3 broadcast a series of Essays from New Generation Thinkers exploring Masculinities which you can find on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061jm Lauren Working is a Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at the University of York and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn academic research into radio. You can hear her discussing The Botanical Past in a Free Thinking discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wlgv
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Image: Anthony van Dyck Lord John Stuart and his Brother, Lord Bernard Stuart (about 1638) Oil on canvas The National Gallery, London. Bought, 1988 © The National Gallery, London.
From school to work to the military – uniforms can signal authority and belonging. But what happens when uniforms are worn by those whom institutions normally exclude? Or when they’re used out of context? New Generation Thinker Tom Smith explores playful, creative and queer uses of uniforms, from the cult film Mädchen in Uniform, recently released in the UK by the BFI, to documents he discovered in German archives, to his take on the styles embraced in subcultures today.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Tom Smith is a Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. You can find other Essays by him for Radio 3 exploring Berlin, Detroit, Race and Techno Music https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kfjt and Masculinities: Comrades in Arms https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061m5 and hear him in this Free Thinking episode debating New angles on post-war Germany and Austria https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjx
Image: Joanna Lumley as Patsy (Left) and Jennifer Saunders as Edina (Right) wearing school uniform in BBC 1 Absolutely Fabulous, 1992.
Fashion from the 1990s to the 1790s and back again: Jade Halbert traces the history of Droopy & Browns, a fashion business renowned for the flamboyant and elegant work of its designer, Angela Holmes. While many British designers of the late twentieth century looked to replicate a lean, monochromatic, almost corporate New York sensibility, Angela Holmes gloried in drama and historicism. A favourite of actresses, artists, writers, and stylish women everywhere, the closure of the business soon after Angela’s death, aged 50, in 2000 marked the end of an era in British fashion.
Producer: Jessica Treen
Jade Halbert lectures at the University of Huddersfield and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme which turns academic research into radio. You can find another Essay called Not Quite Jean Muir about learning to make a dress on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kgwq and a short Radio 3 Sunday feature on the state of high street fashion shopping https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gvpn
Image: Jade Halbert
Oscar Wilde's famous line from The Importance of Being Earnest focuses on what we might not expect to find - Shahidha Bari's essay considers the range of objects we do carry around with us and why bags have been important throughout history: from designs drawn up in 1497 by Leonardo to the symbolism of Mary Poppins' carpet bag in PL Travers' novel to the luggage carried by refugees travelling across continents often in what's called a Ghana Must Go bag.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Shahidha Bari is a writer, critic, Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at London College of Fashion and presenter of Free Thinking. She was one of the first New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to share their research on the radio. You can find a playlist featuring essays, discussions and features by New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking website and a whole host of programmes presented by Shahidha. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn
Image: Artist Yayoi Kusuma at a Louis Vuitton fashion shoot
"My lady's corselet" was developed by a pioneer of free verse on the frontlines of feminism, the poet Mina Loy. Celebrated in the 1910s as the quintessential New Woman, her love of freedom was shadowed by a darker quest to perfect the female body, as her unusual designs for a figure-correcting corset show. Sophie Oliver asks how she fits into a history of body-correcting garments and cosmetic surgery, feminism and fashion. Working on both sides of the Atlantic writing poetry and designing bonkers body-altering garments: like a bracelet for office workers with a built-in ink blotter, or her ‘corselet’ to correct curvature of the spine in women - in the end Mina Loy couldn’t stop time, and her late-life poetry is full of old clothes and outcast people from the Bowery, as she reckons with – and celebrates – the fact that she has become unfashionable.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Image: Mina Loy, Designs for a ‘corselet’, or ‘armour for the body’, c.1941. Mina Loy papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Courtesy of Roger L. Conover, Mina Loy's editor and executor.
Sophie Oliver teaches English Literature at the University of Liverpool and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns academic research into radio programmes. You can find a collection of essays, discussions and features with New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website under the playlist Ten Years of New Generation Thinkers https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. This February marks the centenary of the novel's publication. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help?
In the final essay of the series, novelist Nuala O'Connor chooses the last episode of the book - Penelope - which is the one Nuala discovered first. In Penelope, we hear Molly Bloom, the wife of the novel's main protagonist, speak to us.
In the extract Nuala selects, Molly lies in bed, top to tail with her husband. We hear Molly consider him and his antics - and muse on what husbands, and men in general, mean to her. Nuala examines some of her favourite phrases from the passage; she reveals some of the parallels she can see in Joyce's own biography; and she tells us why the novel's final words might prove the ultimate key to unlocking the book.
Presenter: Nuala O'Connor Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. This February marks the centenary of the novel's publication. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help?
In the fourth essay of the series, novelist and short story writer Mary Costello selects an excerpt from an episode full of questions and answers, known as Ithaca. The episode sees Leopold Bloom, the novel's main character, and his friend Stephen Dedalus walk back to Bloom's house in the middle of the night.
In the passage which Mary selects, Bloom has got home and turns on the tap to fill the kettle. Mary says that what follows is a "magnificent, bird's-eye view of the water's journey from County Wicklow" all the way through the city to the Mr Bloom's sink. Mary argues that Ithaca is compelling not just because of the maths, science and language contained within it but also because of the fuller picture it paints of Mr Leopold Bloom.
Presenter: Mary Costello Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. This February marks the centenary of the novel's publication. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help?
In the third essay of this series, acclaimed Irish writer Colm Tóibín talks about the role of songs and singing in the novel. He says that in early 20th-century Dublin, professional and amateur concerts and operatic singing flourished - and he argues that many of the characters in Ulysses are connected by music and song.
Colm selects a passage from the Sirens episode of the book which sees the character, Simon Dedalus, sing in his rich tenor voice. Colm examines the parallels between the character of Simon Dedalus and Joyce's own father, John Stanislaus Joyce - both good singers. Colm argues that all the "badness" in Simon "is washed away by his performance as singer" and he explores how the reverberations of Simon's song echo later in book.
Presenter: Colm Tóibín Presenter: Camellia Sinclair
Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. This February marks the centenary of the novel's publication. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help?
In the second essay of the series, young Irish writer John Patrick McHugh selects the fourth episode of the novel: Calypso. In it we encounter the novel's main character: Leopold Bloom. John gives us a close reading of its opening which sees Mr Bloom make breakfast for his wife and feed his cat. John says it's a chapter that "smells both of melted butter and defecation" and explores Joyce's unique description of a cat's miaow. He tells us about feeling lightheaded when he first encountered Ulysses and how his experience of the book has changed on re-reading it.
Presenter: John Patrick McHugh Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. February 2022 marks the centenary of the novel's publication. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help?
In the first essay of the series, award-winning Irish writer Anne Enright explores the first couple of pages of Joyce's epic. She examines the characters of Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus - the two men we first meet at the top of a tower overlooking Dublin Bay. She tells us from where Joyce drew his inspiration in creating his protagonists and she reveals a little about how she first discovered the famous tome.
Part of Radio 3 and Radio 4's season of programme marking the Modernist movement.
Presenter: Anne Enright Producer: Camellia Sinclair
The writer Colin Grant weaves autobiography with history and research to allow us to look at cannabis use and abuse from an original perspective. He explores how tendrils of marijuana smoke drift through literature, music, madness, medicine and mankind’s desire to meet and exchange.
While the twentieth century was marked by cannabis prohibition, the twenty first century is rediscovering tolerance. Legalisation appears to be snowballing.
But this tolerance comes just as scientists and psychiatrists are becoming increasingly concerned about the drug's links to psychosis, particularly with the global prevalence of higher-strength strains.
In this final Essay, Colin describes how, in the process of writing a book about one of his musical heroes, Bunny Wailer, he finds himself cursed and fearing his own imminent demise. This Essay interrogates marijuana’s association with culture and creativity and explores the place of the drug in both Hinduism and Rastafari, the spiritual and political movement in Jamaica.
Producer: Kirsty Pope A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3
Writer Colin Grant guides us through a nuanced story of cannabis use... and abuse.
As he states at the beginning of the series, Colin carries ‘no lawyer’s brief for marijuana’. In previous programmes, he has explored how it helped his epileptic brother and also how he believes it has provided a form of social service to subsistence communities. But in this essay, Colin explores one of the negative consequences; the role it might have played in the tragic demise of former editor and respected BBC World Service journalist, Hugh Crosskill.
With decriminalisation increasing and cannabis use continuing to grow globally, Colin feels it’s a story that may have implications for us all. The warning it carries is not perhaps the one we might expect, but one far more connected with the perils of how little we really know about the drug in its 21st-century form.
Producer: Kirsty Pope A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3
The writer Colin Grant says he carries ‘no lawyer’s brief for marijuana’. Rather, in a landscape in which almost all discussion is polarised, he seeks to explore a range of more nuanced aspects of the drug.
In this third essay of the series, Colin looks at the issue of medical cannabis. He traces the way in which it fell from favour in the 20th century and is now rising again, despite opposition and, as Colin sees it, institutional intransigence.
It is a subject with a particularly strong resonance for Colin’s family. When his brother, Christopher, struggled with prescribed epilepsy medication, he discovered welcome relief through cannabis use. Colin looks at recent research studies, delves back into the history of medical cannabis, and asks - if it was good enough for Queen Victoria, then why not his brother?
Producer: Kirsty Pope A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3
Writer Colin Grant examines the implications of evolving attitudes to cannabis use in the 21st century. Recalling a trip to Burkina Faso some years ago, Colin explores the relationship between cannabis and the local community he encountered there, and how the boom in acceptance of the drug worldwide, for both medical and recreational purposes, has led to ‘green’ venture capitalism – and possibly a net loss for those subsistence farmers he met on his trip.
While the 20th century was replete with prohibition, the 21st century is rediscovering tolerance. From Canada to South Africa, Georgia to Uruguay and numerous US states; the legalisation of cannabis appears to be snowballing. But, Colin asks, what might it really mean to those who produce and consume it?
Producer: Kirsty Pope A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3
Since its creation a century ago, perceptions of Northern Ireland have often been dominated by stories of conflict and political unrest. But as anyone who lives there or who has visited knows, it’s a picture that’s far from complete.
Five essays reveal Another Northern Ireland in its centenary year - the idiosyncrasies of the everyday, hidden histories and untold stories, which outsiders rarely get to hear about but which each of these writers inhabits, lives and understands.
Novelist Glenn Patterson takes us into the Belfast hairdressers, clothes shops and clubs that assumed an urgent significance during the Northern Ireland Troubles.
Written and read by Glenn Patterson Producers: Ophelia Byrne and Conor Garrett
Since its creation a century ago, perceptions of Northern Ireland have often been dominated by stories of conflict and political unrest. But as anyone who lives there or who has visited knows, it’s a picture that’s far from complete.
Five essays reveal Another Northern Ireland in its centenary year - the idiosyncrasies of the everyday, hidden histories and untold stories, which outsiders rarely get to hear about but which each of these writers inhabits, lives and understands.
After discovering a message chalked on a wall, writer Claire Mitchell peels back the layers of her County Down hometown to discover a hidden radical history.
Written and read by Claire Mitchell Producers: Ophelia Byrne and Conor Garrett
Since its creation a century ago, perceptions of Northern Ireland have often been dominated by stories of conflict and political unrest. But as anyone who lives there or who has visited knows, it’s a picture that’s far from complete.
Five essays reveal Another Northern Ireland in its centenary year - the idiosyncrasies of the everyday, hidden histories and untold stories, which outsiders rarely get to hear about but which each of these writers inhabits, lives and understands.
Poet Mícheál McCann has always believed that, for queer people like him, to leave for the big city is not just a verb but a commandment. But at a traditional rural Northern Ireland wake, a mourning rite for his uncle, he reconsiders his understanding of ‘home’ and asks if it could come to mean something different.
Written and read by Mícheál McCann Producers: Ophelia Byrne and Conor Garrett
Since its creation a century ago, perceptions of Northern Ireland have often been dominated by stories of conflict and political unrest. But as anyone who lives there or who has visited knows, it’s a picture that’s far from complete.
Five essays reveal Another Northern Ireland in its centenary year - the idiosyncrasies of the everyday, hidden histories and untold stories, which outsiders rarely get to hear about but which each of these writers inhabits, lives and understands.
Poet Gail McConnell talks about Northern Ireland’s connection to the sea and its inspiration in the poet Louis MacNeice’s work and life as well as her own.
Written and read by Gail McConnell Producers: Ophelia Byrne and Conor Garrett
Since its creation a century ago, perceptions of Northern Ireland have often been dominated by stories of conflict and political unrest. But as anyone who lives there or who has visited knows, it’s a picture that’s far from complete.
Five essayists reveal Another Northern Ireland in its centenary year - the idiosyncrasies of the everyday, hidden histories and untold stories, which outsiders rarely get to hear about but which each of these writers inhabits, lives and understands.
Author Jan Carson talks about the women who kept her Presbyterian church supplied with tea and traybakes when she was growing up - and reveals what they taught her about finding her own voice.
Written and read by Jan Carson Producers: Ophelia Byrne and Conor Garrett
For many of us, isolation is disconcerting and challenging, but for wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, it is something he actively seeks, so he can fully immerse himself in a place and capture its unique sounds in his recordings.
In the last of five illustrated essays, Chris vividly recalls his quest to capture the sounds of isolation when he goes in search of the entrance to the centre of the earth. Inspired by Jules Verne’s novel he travels from sea level to volcanic crater drawn by the unique sounds of Iceland.
Produced by Sarah Blunt for BBC Audio in Bristol.
For many of us, isolation is disconcerting and challenging, but for wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, it is something he actively seeks, so he can fully immerse himself in a place and capture its unique sounds in his recordings.
In the fourth of five illustrated essays, Chris recalls his quest to record wild voices in the darkness and isolation of Dryburn Moor in Northumberland. It can be a real challenge to find a truly isolated place in the UK, but here on the high Pennines, Chris was rewarded with a serenade of birds, which he can hear but can’t see until the night evolves into day.
Produced by Sarah Blunt for BBC Audio in Bristol.
For many of us, isolation is disconcerting and challenging, but for wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, it is something he actively seeks, so he can fully immerse himself in a place and capture its unique sounds in his recordings.
In the third of five illustrated essays, Chris vividly recalls his quest to capture the voices of a black throated diver or, 'musta kuikka', on a isolated lake in Finland having been inspired by a painting of Lake Keitele by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. Surrounded by a vast forest he experiences a powerful sense and spirit of place as he watches, waits and listens.
Produced by Sarah Blunt for BBC Audio in Bristol.
For many of us, isolation is disconcerting and challenging, but for wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, it is something he actively seeks, so he can fully immerse himself in a place and capture its unique sounds in his recordings.
In the second of five illustrated essays, Chris recalls an exhausting and chilling climb to the pinnacle of Skellig Michael, an isolated rock which rises over 700ft out of the Atlantic ocean off the south west coast of Ireland to capture the wailing cries of the inhabitants which return here at night under the cover of darkness.
Produced by Sarah Blunt for BBC Audio in Bristol.
For many of us, isolation is disconcerting and challenging, but for wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, it is something he actively seeks, so he can fully immerse himself in a place and capture its unique sounds in his recordings. In the first of five illustrated essays, Chris recalls a trip to Antarctica, to a landscape which has been described as ‘The Great White Silence’ to record one of the greatest transitional events on the planet; the sounds of a glacier being transformed over the Antarctic summer from a solid mountain of freshwater ice into the salt water of the Ross Sea.
Produced by Sarah Blunt for BBC Audio in Bristol. Photo courtesy Chris Watson.
The early powerful ruler who summoned spirits as well as armies. Christopher Harding portrays the lives of five colourful characters from Japan's past to answer the question, "Who are the Japanese"? Beginning in the twentieth century, he works backwards through time to reveal different dimensions of Japanese identity, encompassing sport, art, culture, politics, warfare and religion. In his final essay, Dr Harding reveals his sense of the transience of life inspired by Mount Fear on the northernmost tip of Japan's main island of Honshu. It prompts him to recall the first known named person in Japanese history, the shaman-queen Himiko. "By the time of Himiko's birth, attempts to grapple with the strangeness of life and to find ways of belonging in the world had resolved into the role of the shaman. Himiko was likely regarded, by dint of family or force of personality, as a shaman of particular potency." She received lavish gifts from the Wei Emperor in China and, "It seems ...that alongside mustering small armies she could also summon spirits. It may have been these that her enemies feared more."
Dr Christopher Harding is Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His books include, "The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives" and "A History of Modern Japan: In Search of a Nation, 1850 – the Present".
Producer: Sheila Cook Editor: Hugh Levinson
The 11th-century courtier who wrote what is thought to be the world's first novel. Christopher Harding portrays the lives of five colourful characters from Japan's past to answer the question, "Who are the Japanese"? Beginning in the 20th century, he works backwards through time to reveal different dimensions of Japanese identity, encompassing sport, art, culture, politics, warfare and religion. In his fourth essay, he compares Japan and the UK as mirror images of each other: two island nations, "both known for a certain reserve in their national characters, and both enjoying the stability that comes with constitutional monarchy." Murusaki Shikibu, who wrote "The Tale of Genji", had a ringside seat as lady-in-waiting to the eleventh century imperial court. "Here was a society blessed both with an almost impossible level of sophistication - in its poetry, pastimes, dress and general comportment and with female chroniclers capable of wringing every last delicious detail out of the personal foibles, fashion faux-pas and social missteps of those who inhabited it."
Dr Christopher Harding is Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His books include, "The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives" and "A History of Modern Japan: In Search of a Nation, 1850 – the Present"
The quoted translations are taken from "The Diary of Lady Murasaki" (Penguin, 1996) by Professor Richard Bowring.
Producer: Sheila Cook Editor: Hugh Levinson
The terrifying warlord who brought much of Japan under his control. Christopher Harding portrays the lives of five colourful characters from Japan's past to answer the question, "Who are the Japanese"? Beginning in the twentieth century, he works backwards through time to reveal different dimensions of Japanese identity, encompassing sport, art, culture, politics, warfare and religion. The subject of the third essay is the ruthless sixteenth century warlord Oda Nobunaga. Living at a time when order had broken down into warring fiefdoms, he paved the way for unified secular rule in Japan by attacking the military and political influence of the Buddhist sects. A fearsome warrior steeped in samurai culture, "Nobunaga was imagining its re-unification by identifying it with himself."
Dr Christopher Harding is Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His books include, "The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives" and "A History of Modern Japan: In Search of a Nation, 1850 – the Present".
Producer: Sheila Cook Editor: Hugh Levinson
The creator of Atom Boy who brought Japanese cartoons to the world. Christopher Harding portrays the lives of five colourful characters from Japan's past to answer the question, "Who are the Japanese"? Beginning in the twentieth century, he works backwards through time to reveal different dimensions of Japanese identity, encompassing sport, art, culture, politics, warfare and religion. In his second essay, he describes how the artist Tezuka Osamu helped shape post war Japanese pop culture through manga and anime, Japan's instantly recognisable style of comic books and animated films, that he made famous world wide. Dr Harding places Tezuka in Japan's centuries' old tradition of satirical art, though reflects that his Disney inspired creations such as Atom Boy may leave him "one day remembered for fostering a form of popular culture that was insufficiently angry, satirical or creatively critical of politics."
Dr Christopher Harding is Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His books include, "The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives" and "A History of Modern Japan: In Search of a Nation, 1850 – the Present".
Producer: Sheila Cook Editor: Hugh Levinson
The brutal coach who achieved a gold medal for Japan's women's volleyball team in the 1964 Olympics. Christopher Harding portrays the lives of five colourful characters from Japan's history to answer the question, "Who are the Japanese"? Beginning in the 20th century, he works backwards through time to reveal different dimensions of Japanese identity, encompassing sport, art, culture, politics, warfare and religion. In his first essay, Dr Harding recalls the first time Tokyo was due to host the Olympic Games in 1940. War intervened, the Games were cancelled and the young Daimatsu "The Demon" Hirobumi found himself in the army, learning tough lessons in survival. Post war he forged a career as the fearsome coach of the women's national volleyball team, pushing them to win gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. "As the scale of destruction visited upon Asia and the Pacific by Japan became clear in the years after war's end, national self-questioning had turned into a painful business - a matter not so much of 'Who are we' as 'Is this who we are?' The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, in October 1964, was a precious opportunity for the Japanese to offer the world - and themselves - a more hopeful account."
Dr Christopher Harding is Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His books include, "The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives" and "A History of Modern Japan: In Search of a Nation, 1850 – the Present".
Producer: Sheila Cook Editor: Hugh Levinson
It's the mid-1990s. Joanna Robertson lives in tumultuous Albania, where she's moved to be a journalist. King Leka Zogu returns from exile in a quest to regain his throne. Joanna meets the king as he campaigns in rural, monarchist strongholds ahead of a national referendum. But the country is unpredictable and dangerous, still in the throes of anarchy and violence, largely controlled by armed criminal groups. Does Joanna now know too much? When she’s the target of a shooting, and is later ambushed at gunpoint, she has to ask - has the time come to leave?
Presenter: Joanna Robertson Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Photo: 'Theth - waiting for transport’ by Stan Sherer, from the book ‘Long Life to Your Children!’
It's the mid-90s, and Joanna Robertson has moved to Albania to be a foreign correspondent, on a hunch that something major was about to happen there. And it has: multiple pyramid schemes collapse, leaving many destitute. In the resulting uprising, the military's arms depots are looted - 2.7 billion items of weaponry, ammunition and explosives now in the hands of a population of 3.4 million, over half of whom are under 15. The country descends into violence and anarchy, the capital Tirana gets a record number of international visitors, in the shape of the world's media - but Joanna is well ahead of them, landing her scoop.
Presenter: Joanna Robertson Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Photo: 'Theth - waiting for transport’ by Stan Sherer from the book, ‘Long Life to Your Children!’
It's the mid-90s and Joanna Robertson explores Albania's traditional north, where she finds lives are still led according to ancient rules codified in the 'Kanun'. It's a place where innocent young men are doomed to live in hiding to avoid being killed in a blood feud, and where for a woman to be unmarried is either a deep shame or an honour - if she lives life as a man, in the absence of male siblings. In the country's south, the collapse of a pyramid scheme in which many lost everything leads to an anti-government uprising in the city of Vlore. When demonstrators are killed, Vlore swears revenge.
Presenter: Joanna Robertson Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Photo: 'Theth - waiting for transport’ by Stan Sherer from the book, ‘Long Life to Your Children!’
It's the mid-1990s, and Joanna Robertson is settling in in her new home: a crumbling flat in Albania's capital Tirana. The country is falling into crisis - miserably poor and with outbreaks of disease so bad that the World Health Organisation feels compelled to intervene. Plenty of material for Joanna to start filing her first news stories - from a bugged phone booth in a hotel, where the call has to be paid for in advance with a pile of painstakingly counted-out bank notes.
Presenter: Joanna Robertson Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Photo: 'Theth - waiting for transport’ by Stan Sherer from the book, ‘Long Life to Your Children!’
It's the mid-1990s, Albania is in turmoil after decades of communist isolation. Drawn by the mystery of a country she knows little about, Joanna Robertson sets off to go and live there. In a used car and with only essential equipment, all bought with a business loan thanks to an understanding bank manager, she buys a one-way boat ticket for a place that she only has second-hand knowledge of, gleaned from an almost-empty Albanian shop in London's Covent Garden and exiles in a Soho coffee shop.
Presenter: Joanna Robertson Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Photo: 'Theth - waiting for transport’ by Stan Sherer from the book, ‘Long Life to Your Children!'
Nobel laureate Naipaul began his career working in radio for the BBC, and it is also where writer Colin Grant met him towards the end of his life half a century later. How had the giant of Trinidadian literature changed during that time since being told to "write like a West Indian" and quickly becoming the precocious editor of Caribbean Voices? This polemical exploration celebrates his contributions, as well as examining his many contradictions.
Seventy-five years ago, the revolutionary Caribbean Voices strand was established on the Overseas Service by trailblazing Jamaican broadcaster Una Marson. Every week for over a decade, it gave exposure on radio to emerging writers from the region such as Sam Selvon, Derek Walcott and George Lamming - many for the first time. Delving into the BBC's Written Archives, five writers go in search of five important figures who contributed to the programme throughout the 1940s and 50s, each of whom changed the literary landscape in a different way. This series is part archival treasure hunt, part cultural history and part personal reflections on the people behind a landmark institution.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
During his time as a producer on the BBC's landmark radio programme, Henry Swanzy was credited with showcasing some of the 20th century's biggest Caribbean literary voices. His collaborator Gladys Lindo, however, has been forgotten. Academic and writer Jen McDerra finds her hidden in the archives.
Seventy-five years ago, the revolutionary Caribbean Voices strand was established on the Overseas Service by trailblazing Jamaican broadcaster Una Marson. Every week for over a decade, it gave exposure on air to emerging writers from the region such as Sam Selvon, Derek Walcott and VS Naipaul - many for the first time. For this series, five writers go in search of five important figures who contributed to the programme throughout the 1940s and 50s, each of whom changed the literary landscape in a different way.
Image: The above photo of Gladys R. Lindo is the first to be featured in the public domain. It was given to Jen McDerra by Gladys' grandaughter in Kingston, Jamaica in June 2021 and is reproduced here with the permission of her family
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
The poet, folklorist and performer ‘Miss Lou’ made waves on air on both sides of the Atlantic. Coming to study at Rada in London shortly after WWII, her dialect verse was picked up and celebrated on the BBC through radio programmes like Caribbean Voices. For writer Kei Miller, who lovingly recalls the magic her words worked on his mother, she is rightly seen as a hero back home in Jamaica.
75 years ago, the revolutionary Caribbean Voices strand was established on the Overseas Service by trailblazing Jamaican broadcaster Una Marson. Every week for over a decade, it gave exposure on radio to emerging writers from the region such as Sam Selvon, Derek Walcott and VS Naipaul - many for the first time. Delving into the BBC's Written Archives, five writers go in search of five important figures who contributed to the programme throughout the 1940s and 50s, each of whom changed the literary landscape in a different way. The result is part archival treasure hunt, part cultural history and part personal reflection on the people behind a landmark institution.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Arriving in Britain as part of the Windrush Generation, Andrew Salkey made vital contributions to the BBC's Caribbean Voices programme as a presenter, writer and reader of others work. But author of Rainbow Milk, Paul Mendez, knew little about him before coming across a striking image of man at the centre of the mid-20th century's black literary scene. Here he draws on that picture, following Salkey's journey from reading the work of other authors on air, to penning his own forgotten queer classic, Escape to an Autumn.
75 years ago, the revolutionary Caribbean Voices strand was established on the BBC's Overseas Service by trailblazing Jamaican broadcaster Una Marson. Every week for over a decade, it gave exposure on radio to emerging writers from the region such as Sam Selvon, Derek Walcott and VS Naipaul - many for the first time. Delving into the BBC's Written Archives, five writers go in search of five important figures who contributed to the programme throughout the 1940s and 50s, each of whom changed the literary landscape in a different way. The result is part archival treasure hunt, part cultural history and part personal reflection on the people behind a landmark institution.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Trailblazing Jamaican broadcaster Una Marson is rightly celebrated for being the BBC's first black producer and founding an innovative radio programme. But why has her own poetry been neglected? Author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton, and herself no stranger to the airwaves, Sara Collins goes in search of Marson's voice.
75 years ago, the revolutionary Caribbean Voices strand was established on the BBC's Overseas Service. Every week for over a decade, it gave exposure to emerging writers from the region such as Sam Selvon, Derek Walcott and VS Naipaul - many for the first time. Delving into the BBC's Written Archives, five writers explore five important literary figures who contributed to the programme throughout the 1940s and 50s. The result is part archival treasure hunt, part cultural history and part personal reflection on the people behind the landmark institution.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite shares his passion for five very different singers whose voices, artistry and lives inspire and move him, and whose stories he needs to tell.
If you've listened to much pop music this century, you've almost certainly heard the voice of Alabama folk singer Vera Hall - though you might not know it. Brilliantly sampled by Moby in his single Natural Blues, Hall's extraordinary voice was recorded several times by renowned American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in the 1930s. To conclude his series, Peter explores what it is that makes this pretty much unknown woman's voice so particularly powerful, and reflects on why the singing human voice has the capacity to transcend time, space and situation and speak to us so deeply.
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite shares his passion for five very different singers whose voices, artistry and lives inspire and move him, and whose stories he needs to tell.
If you're asked to think of a groundbreaking singer called McFerrin, it's likely that Bobby springs to mind. But this undisputed vocal genius is in fact following in the footsteps of his father, Robert McFerrin Snr: the first ever African American man to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
For Peter, Robert McFerrin's beautiful baritone voice, and his experiences singing on the global opera stage, resonate down generations of black men singing in opera. He both acts as a role model and offers insight into the cyclical nature of conversations about race and representation in classical music.
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite shares his passion for five very different singers whose voices, artistry and lives inspire and move him, and whose stories he needs to tell.
Tonight we take an unexpected turn, moving away from the world of opera and world-renowned singers into more modest, but no less impactful, territory. Eric Bentley was a renowned theatre critic and writer, but he also performed cabaret songs, especially those of his friends Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler. Peter explains why Bentley's untrained but completely committed voice has always captivated him, a fellow Lancastrian, and uncovers the profound effect Bentley's work has had on his own career.
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite shares his passion for five very different singers whose voices, artistry and lives inspire and move him, and whose stories he needs to tell.
Soprano Leontyne Price was the first African American opera singer who attained true superstar status, becoming one of the most celebrated voices of all time. Peter relives his discovery of her peerless spinto soprano voice through a pile of old library vinyls, and digs deep into what made her voice so exquisite and her artistry so compelling.
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite shares his passion for five very different singers whose voices, artistry and lives inspire and move him, and whose stories he needs to tell.
‘A voice like yours is heard only once in a hundred years’: so said conductor Arturo Toscanini to Marian Anderson, the African American contralto whose concert on Easter Sunday concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 became a defining moment in America's civil rights movement.
Peter invites us to dive with him into Anderson’s extraordinary voice, exploring its sonic qualities as well as its cultural and historical importance, and why for him, a black opera singer in 2021, Marian Anderson’s voice still resonates so deeply.
Why are mountains linked with uplifting feelings? Noreen Masud's Essay conjures the vast skies of Norfolk and the fantasy of hope felt by Kazuo Ishiguro's characters in his novel Never Let Me Go, the idea of openness described by Graham Swift in his fenland novel Waterland and the feeling of freedom felt by poet Stevie Smith who declared: "I like … flatness. It lifts the weight from the nerves and the mind."
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Dr Noreen Masud teaches literature at Durham University. You can hear her exploring aphorisms in this Sunday Feature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rtxb and debating Dada in this Free Thinking discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k9ws She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who turn their research into radio.
Eight churches were set on fire, and a taste for occult rituals and satanic imagery spiralled into suicide and murder in the Norwegian Black metal scene of the 1990s. Lucy Weir looks at the lessons we can take from this dark story about the way we look at mental health and newspaper reporting.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Dr Lucy Weir is a specialist in dance and performance at the University of Edinburgh. You can hear her discussing the impact of Covid on dance performances in this Free Thinking discussion about audiences https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nvlc and her thoughts on dance and stillness https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k33s
She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to turn their research into radio.
Darragh McGee takes the long view of the risk-based games we have played throughout history. He explores the experiences of their losers and the moral censure that their losses have attracted; from the 18th-century gentry who learned to lose their fortune with good grace at the gaming tables of Bath to the twenty-first century smartphone user, facing an altogether more lonely ordeal. He considers the cultural history gambling - and, what the games we have staked our money on through the centuries, tell us about ourselves and society.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Dr Darragh McGee teaches in the Department for Health at the University of Bath. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can hear him talking about gambling in this Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000khhq
The First Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris 1956 staged debates about colonial history which are still playing out in the protests of the Gilets Noirs. New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza leafs through the pages of the journal Présence Africaine, and picks out a short story by Ousmane Sembène tracing the dreams of a young woman from Senegal. Her experiences are echoed in a new experimental patchwork of writing by Nathalie Quintane called Les enfants vont bien. And what links all of these examples is the idea of papers, cahiers and identity documents.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Alexandra Reza researches post-colonial literature at the University of Oxford. You can hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about Aimé Césaire https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmxf She also appears alongside Tariq Ali and Kehindre Andrews in a discussion Frantz Fanon's Writing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tdtn And in last week's Free Thinking episode looking at the fiction of Maryse Condé https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v86y She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Council to select academics to turn their research into radio.
Gold fob seals, Sheffield silver, Mesolithic stone tools - these were some of the discoveries detailed in the 28 papers, books and pamphlets published by a soldier turned archaeologist who began looking at what you might find in the soil in the middle of a World War I battlefield. In her Essay, Seren Griffiths traces the way Francis Buckley used his training for military intelligence to shape the way he set about digging up and recording objects buried both in war-torn landscapes of France and then on the Yorkshire moors around his home.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Dr Seren Griffiths teaches at Manchester Metropolitan University and is involved in a project to use new scientific dating techniques to write the first historical narrative for two thousand years of what was previously 'prehistoric' Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain and Ireland. She has also organised public events at the excavations she co- directs at Bryn Celli Ddu in North Wales and you can hear her talking about midsummer at a Neolithic monument in an episode of Free Thinking.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to choose ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Chinatown, New York, in 1890 was described by photo-journalist Jacob Riis as "disappointing." He focused only on images of opium dens and gambling and complained about the people living there being "secretive". But could withholding your emotions be a deliberate tactic rather than a crass stereotype of inscrutability? Xine Yao has been reading short stories from the collection Mrs. Spring Fragrance, published in 1912 by Sui Sin Far and her Essay looks at what links the Asian American Exclusion Act of 1882, the first American federal law to exclude people on the basis of national or ethnic origin, to writings by the Martinican philosopher Édouard Glissant.
Producer: Caitlin Benedict.
Xine Yao researches early and nineteenth-century American literature and teaches at University College London. She hosts a podcast PhDivas and you can hear her in Free Thinking discussions about Darwin's Descent of Man, Mould-breaking Writing and in a programme with Ian Rankin and Tahmima Anam where she talks about science fiction. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to choose ten academics each year to turn their research into radio programmes.
Vivian Maier left over 150,000 negatives when she died in 2009. Her boxes and boxes of unprinted street photographs were stacked alongside shoulder-high piles of newspapers in her Chicago home. The artist Francis Bacon's studio has been painstakingly recreated in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin complete with paint-spattered furniture and over 7,000 items. New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester's research looks at ideas about waste and in this Essay he considers what the difference might be between hoarding and collecting and between the stuff assembled by these artists and his own father's shelves of matchday programmes.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Dr Diarmuid Hester is radical cultural historian of the United States after 1950, and he teaches on sexually dissident literature, art, film, and performance at the University of Cambridge. He has published a critical biography of Dennis Cooper called Wrong and you can find his Essay for Radio 3 about Cooper in the series Books to Make Space For on the Bookshelf and his postcard about Derek Jarman's garden in the Free Thinking archives. 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 turn their research into radio.
The potato famine saw a Dublin barracks turned into place where starving people were given six minutes to eat their soup in silence. Tom Scott-Smith researches humanitarian relief and his Essay takes us from the father of the modern soup kitchen in 1790 Bavaria and the meaning of "to rumfordize" to Boston, America a hundred years later and a recipe developed by an MIT Professor, Ellen Swallow Richards, which dunked meat in condensed milk and flour. What lessons about society's values can we take from their different recipes for soup?
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Tom Scott-Smith is Associate Professor of Refugee Studies and Forced Migration at the University of Oxford. He has published a book called On an Empty Stomach: Two Hundred Years of Hunger Relief, and taken part in a film project Shelter without Shelter which was the winner of one of the 2020 AHRC Research in Film Awards. This research was featured in an exhibition staged by the Imperial War Museum which you can hear about in the Free Thinking episode called Refugees.. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to choose ten academics each year who use their research to make radio programmes.
Blousy chrysanthemums pattern the cotton dress, designed for wearing indoors, that a pregnant Sophie Oliver found herself owning. It helped her come to terms with motherhood. In this Essay, the New Generation Thinker reflects upon the daydreams of Jean Rhys, the way she tried to connect with her daughter Maryvonne through clothes and examples from her fiction where fashion allows dissatisfied female characters to express and transform themselves.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Dr Sophie Oliver lectures in English at the University of Liverpool and curated an exhibition at the British Library in 2016 - Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea and the Making of an Author. 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 use their research to make radio programmes. You can find Sophie discussing a novel based on the actress Ingrid Bergman, and the writing of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath in episodes of Free Thinking available on the programme website and BBC Sounds.
Claude Mackay the Haarlem poet wrote about his experiences of an earthquake in Kingston in 1907. Twenty years earlier the city was putting itself back together following a devastating fire set off by a disgruntled employee. New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar has been reading through diaries and archives and her Essay suggests that there are lessons we can take about the way societies rebuild after disasters.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Dr Christienna Fryar is Lecturer in Black British History at Goldsmiths London and convenor of the MA in Black British History, the first taught masters' programme of its kind in the UK. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Council to select ten academics each year to make radio programmes based on their research. You can find a playlist of discussions, documentaries and other Essays featuring New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website which include Christienna hosting discussions about women and slavery, and talking with Professor Olivette Otele.
The dangerous world of an explosives factory is the setting of Inez Holden’s 1944 novel There’s No Story There. A bohemian figure who went on to write film scripts for J Arthur Rank, to report on the Nuremberg Trials, and produce articles published in Cyril Connolly's magazine Horizon - Holden campaigned for workers’ rights and was close friend of George Orwell, and though she published ten books in her lifetime, she fell out of fashion - until now. New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen re-reads her writing and finds a refreshingly modern mind.
Lisa Mullen is the author of Mid-Century Gothic: The Uncanny Objects of Modernity in British Literature and Culture after the Second World War. She teaches at the University of Cambridge and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can hear Lisa writing on George Orwell and the contribution of his wife in a Radio 3 Essay called Who Wrote Animal Farm? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000413q She has presented short features about Mary Wollstonecraft as a single mother https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061ly On the blackthorn in Sloe Time https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n6bx She has contributed to Free Thinking discussions about Contagion and Viruses https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gbq6 and Weimar and the Subversion of Cabaret https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b7r7 She has presented episodes of Free Thinking looking at eco-criticism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rw8t and Panto and magic https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q376
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Drugs, sex, violence and thinking about death are at the core of the George Miles cycle of five novels. New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester draws the links between the author Dennis Cooper and the radicalism of the Marquis de Sade. Now 68, Cooper's books have been praised for his non naturalistic writing and the texture of teenage thought that he captures in the series, which begins with Closer, and condemned for depravity. George Miles was his childhood friend and then lover, who ended up committing suicide.
Diarmuid Hester teaches at the University of Cambridge and is a 2020 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. He has published WRONG: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper, and is now working on Nothing Ever Just Disappears: A New History of Queer Culture Through its Spaces You can hear him talking about Derek Jarman's garden in this Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgm5
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The rights of tribal people, the lives of ordinary workers and the depiction of female desire were amongst the themes explored by the writer Mahasweta Devi. Born in Dhaka in 1926, she attended the school established by Rabindranath Tagore and before her death in 2016 she had published over 100 novels and 20 collections of short stories. Sindhubala is one such story, which traces the tale of a woman made to become a healer of children and for New Generation Thinker Preti Taneja, Mahasweta's writing offers a way of using language to explore ideas about power, freedom and feminism.
Preti Taneja is the author of the novel We That Are Young. She teaches at Newcastle University and is a New Generation Thinker on the 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. You can find other Essays by Preti available on the Radio 3 website including one looking at Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001kpc Creating Modern India explores the links between Letchworth Garden City and New Delhi https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08j9x3h You can also find her discussing Global Shakespeare and different approaches to casting his plays in this Free Thinking playlist on Shakespeare https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm And a Free Thinking interview with Arundhati Roy about translation https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5hk01
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Dinah Mulock Craik achieved fame and fortune as the author of the 1856 bestselling novel John Halifax, Gentleman. New Generation Thinker Clare Walker Gore reads this rags-to-riches tale of an orphan boy who rises in the world through sheer hard work and sterling character and her essay looks at the way it encapsulates the most cherished values of its period – but, she argues, both it and the author are more subversive than they first appear. Though she was seen as an icon of the self-improving, respectable middle-classes, Craik had a colourful, often unconventional private life, supporting her husband with her writing and adopting a foundling, but dogged by her father, who was a dissenting preacher put into debtor's prison more than once; and her novels explore disability, forbidden desire, familial dysfunction, and the dark side of her culture’s celebration of self-made success.
Clare Walker Gore is a New Generation Thinker on the 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 programmes. She teaches at the University of Cambridge and is the author of Plotting Disability in the Nineteenth Century Novel.
You can hear Clare talk about this research in the Free Thinking episode Depicting Disability https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000p02b
She contributed to Radio 3's Essay Series Women Writers to Put Back on the Bookshelf profiling the author Margaret Oliphant https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fws4
She has also written an Essay about a 19th-century tiger-hunting MP, who was born without hands and fee - Politician and Pioneer: Writing the Life of Arthur Kavanagh https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06ns10g
Producer: Emma Wallace
Edogawa Rampo's stories give us a Japanese version of Sherlock Holmes. New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding traces the way detective fiction chimed with the modernising of Japan, when the ability to reason and think problems through logically was celebrated, when cities were changing and other arts mourned a lost rural idyll. In The Black Lizard, the hero Akechi Kogorō plays a cat and mouse game with a female criminal who has kidnapped a businessman's daughter.
Christopher Harding is the author of The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives and Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 - the Present (published in the US as A History of Modern Japan: In Search of a Nation, 1850 – the Present). He teaches at the University of Edinburgh. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can use their research to make radio programmes.
You can find him discussing other aspects of Japanese history in the playlist Free Thinking explores Japanese culture https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0657spq He presented an Archive on 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b064ww32 and a series about Depression in Japan also for Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cv0y4 and a series of 5 Essays for BBC Radio 3 called Dark Blossoms about Japan's uneasy embrace of modernity https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01kb2
Producer: Ruth Watts
If there's a subject in which England has every right to claim knowledge through experience, it is the subject of rain. Poets, politicians, or labourers, we've lived a literally and metaphorically sheltered life if we haven't felt the chill of rain on our face. In her Rainsong Essay Dr Tess Somervell pulls together the many ways in which rain has been gathered and responded to in her native land, from the bedraggled and almost inevitably soon to be betrothed costume-drama heroine, to the high romance of the romantic poets and the ancient wisdom of an unknown medieval bard. While smell and taste and sound and sight might all play a part in our collective response to rain, we also feel it, not just on our skin but in our bones.
Writer and scholar Lauren Elkin describes the very particular grey of a rainy Paris in the time of year that the French revolutionary government called Pluviôse, the month of rain. She talks about the way a particular quality of grey sheen was captured by the French Impressionists, and with it a sense of melancholy. It's a vision that recurs in art and film, from Gustave Caillebotte's 1877 Paris Street, Rainy Day, to the recent Christophe Honore film, Les Chansons d'Amour. Elkin describes the latter as appearing to have been shot through a very realistic grey-green "Paris in the rain" filter, which gives it a power and mood rooted in its setting.
In the third of her curated series of essays about the way rain is experienced across the globe, Nandini Das introduces the Australian poet and environmentalist Mark O'Connor. Mark explores the uniquely Australian experiences of rain, which include the vivid smell of it. The word petrichor was coined by Australian scientists to try and capture the odour of rain on arid lands, but there's more than just petrichor in the air, and there's also great variety in the ways in which different parts of Australia experience rain, from the flash downpours and run-offs in the so-called 'Top End', to the agonising expectation of the farms in the south and the exultant rain chorus of Queensland frogs.
When the rains of the fifth month, samidare, arrive in Japan it seems they'll never stop. In the second of Nandini Das's curated series of essays on rain and the way it's experienced across the globe, she invites art historian Timon Screech to introduce us to the rains of Japan where he now lives.
The rains that flood country and city alike are also known as the plum rains, plumping up the fruit in time for the later ripening and harvest. He talks about rain depicted in Japanese literature, particularly the Haiku, in which the sound of rain is experienced in terms of taste - the bitterness of the plum rains. And we discover the significance and symbolism of the umbrella in Japanese culture and art, including their place in nightmare imagery.
Nandini Das, Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture at Oxford, brings us stories and personal experiences of rain and the way it informs and combines with different cultures across the globe. Each of the five essays takes a particular sense and location as focus, beginning with Nandini's native India and the sound of rainfall. She recalls the deafening, thundering rains of the monsoon season in Kolkata, and the language that captured its power. She recalls how the inherited myths and stories of India have always been informed by the uneasy balance of the country's rain and searing heat. And she recounts the musical dramas in which raags are used to call the rains and Bengali nursery rhymes carry its sound, 'brishti porey tupur tapur' (pitter patter falls the rain).
Legendary broadcaster James Burke reveals unexpected connections between his twin passions of science and classical music. In this final essay he leads us, via steam engines, precision instruments, waterworks and iron coffins, to the modern orchestra.
Legendary broadcaster James Burke reveals unexpected connections between his twin passions of science and classical music. Today's essay ranges from Carolina pine trees, chintz, bowler hats and skyscrapers - and ends on the ivories.
Legendary broadcaster James Burke reveals unexpected connections between his twin passions of science and classical music. Today’s essay includes Italian electricity, a German baron and his séances, French carpet-making and your fridge. All on the way to the compositions of Claude Debussy.
Legendary broadcaster James Burke reveals unexpected connections between his twin passions of science and classical music. In this essay he links planetary orbits, new kinds of arithmetic, the teeny-weeny, and of course fake Scottish literature arriving naturally enough at the Romantic movement.
Legendary broadcaster James Burke reveals unexpected connections between his twin passions of science and classical music. In this first exploration he brings together such arcane stuff as organisms that might not exist, Newton and colour, French encyclopedias and a freemason’s opera.
Geoffrey Colman invites us to join him on a walk through a day as an acting coach.
Geoffrey is an acting coach, educator, broadcaster and former professor of acting at the Royal Central School of Speech of Drama, and in this series of Essays he takes listeners inside the rehearsal rooms and onto the stages of his professional life to address key questions about acting.
In this final Essay, Geoffrey describes a series of interactions inside the world of acting - a pop star trying to get in to the business, an actor trying to perfect a role, a stage star who keeps getting stuck on a particular line, and an out of work actor who's obviously struggling. As he does, he brings together all the ideas from this series of Essays, to present a picture of acting and the acting industry today.
Producer: Giles Edwards
Geoffrey Colman describes the ways in which reality TV has changed acting.
Geoffrey is an acting coach, educator, broadcaster and former professor of acting at the Royal Central School of Speech of Drama, and in this series of Essays he takes listeners inside the rehearsal rooms and onto the stages of his professional life to address key questions about acting.
In this Essay, Geoffrey describes the many ways in which reality TV has changed acting, discussing reality, truth and constructed reality.
Producer: Giles Edwards
Geoffrey Colman explores the differences between acting on stage and on screen.
Geoffrey is an acting coach, educator, broadcaster and former professor of acting at the Royal Central School of Speech of Drama, and in this series of Essays he takes listeners inside the rehearsal rooms and onto the stages of his professional life to address key questions about acting.
In this third Essay, Geoffrey discusses the differences between acting on stage and on screen - the difference, according to Sir Laurence Olivier, between handling a sword and a cup of tea. Geoffrey argues that they are completely different propositions, with completely different technical skills required to master each. Actors who can do both stage and screen are, he concludes, truly exceptional artists, because they are very much working in two different art forms. But if they are done well, no one even notices.
Producer: Giles Edwards
Geoffrey Colman asks what students learn in drama schools, as he continues his series of Essays on acting.
Geoffrey is an acting coach, educator, broadcaster and former professor of acting at the Royal Central School of Speech of Drama, and in this series of Essays he takes listeners inside the rehearsal rooms and onto the stages of his professional life to address key questions about acting.
In this second Essay Geoffrey asks what students learn in drama schools. Taking us inside the rehearsal rooms and drama school auditions of his professional life, he'll show how the history of acting tuition continues to inform practice today. But he also reveals how recent movements have upended some of that received wisdom, and challenged the intensely personal way in which graduates are assessed.
Producer: Giles Edwards
Geoffrey Colman considers the art of acting, and in this first of a new set of Essays asks: what makes a great actor?
Geoffrey is an acting coach, educator, broadcaster and former professor of acting at the Royal Central School of Speech of Drama, and in this series of Essays he takes listeners inside the rehearsal rooms and onto the stages of his professional life to address key questions about acting.
In this first episode Geoffrey asks what makes a great actor. With awards season approaching, he's interested in asking what makes for an award-winning performance. As he touches on acting technique, building a character and even an equation for great acting, Geoffrey discusses vulnerability and an actor's ability to make the audience believe.
Producer: Giles Edwards
In the last programme in a series celebrating the joys of Essex, surely the most maligned of counties, writer Gillian Darley explores the unsung delights of Mid Essex, with a trip along the Essex Way.
Known recently for the pneumonic blondes and diamond geezers of television's The Only Way Is Essex, as well as the peroxided 'Essex Girls' of the 80s, Essex seems to have an image problem. John Betjeman called it 'a stronger contrast of beauty and ugliness than any other southern English county'. This series explores the contrasts of this boundary county, this interzone, which has become a parody of itself.
Reader and writer: Gillian Darley is the author of Excellent Essex. She is a writer, broadcaster and architectural campaigner, with an OBE for her services to the Built Environment and its Conservation.
Producer: Justine Willett
In the next in a series celebrating the joys of Essex, surely the most maligned of counties, writer and social historian Ken Worpole explores Essex as a place of retreat and refuge.
Known recently for the pneumonic blondes and diamond geezers of television's The Only Way Is Essex, as well as the peroxided 'Essex Girls' of the 80s, Essex seems to have an image problem. John Betjeman called it 'a stronger contrast of beauty and ugliness than any other southern English county'. This series explores the contrasts of this boundary county, this interzone, which has become a parody of itself.
Reader and writer: Ken Worpole is an acclaimed writer with books on architecture, landscape, planning, design, and social history. He was a founder-member of openDemocracy, and is a senior professor at The Cities Institute, London Metropolitan University.
Producer: Justine Willett
In the next in a series exploring the joys of Essex, surely the most maligned and misunderstood of counties, writer and poet Lavinia Greenlaw takes us back to the formative landscape of her childhood - a place that she rejected for so long...
Known recently for the pneumonic blondes and diamond geezers of television's The Only Way Is Essex, as well as the peroxided 'Essex Girls' of the 80s, Essex seems to have an image problem. John Betjeman called it 'a stronger contrast of beauty and ugliness than any other southern English county'. This series explores the contrasts of this boundary county, this interzone, which has become a parody of itself.
Reader and writer: Lavinia Greenlaw is an acclaimed poet and novelist. Producer: Justine Willett
In the next in a series exploring the joys of Essex, surely the most overlooked and misunderstood of counties, AL Kennedy takes on a watery journey through the rivers, mudflats and reedbeds of the county she now calls home.
Known recently for the pneumonic blondes and diamond geezers of television's The Only Way Is Essex, as well as the peroxided 'Essex Girls' of the 80s, Essex seems to have an image problem. John Betjeman called it 'a stronger contrast of beauty and ugliness than any other southern English county'. This series explores the contrasts of this boundary county, this interzone, which has become a parody of itself.
Reader and writer: AL Kennedy is an acclaimed novelist and short story writer.
Producer: Justine Willett
Kicking off the series exploring the joys of Essex, surely the most maligned and misunderstood of counties, singer-songwriter Billy Bragg reflects on the borderland between London and Essex that fuelled his childhood imagination
John Betjeman called Essex 'a stronger contrast of beauty and ugliness than any other southern English county'. But, known recently for the pneumonic blondes and diamond geezers of TV's The Only Way Is Essex, as well as the peroxided 'Essex Girls' of the 80s and the Tory-loving 'Basildon Man' of the 90s, Essex seems to have become a parody of itself. But Billy Bragg thinks otherwise...
Reader and writer: Billy Bragg is singer, songwriter and activist. Producer: Justine Willett
Radio 3 presenter Jess Gillam celebrates the composer whose music unexpectedly helped her though lockdown, Johann Sebastian Bach,
Radio 3 presenter Jumoké Fashola celebrates the singer-songwriter whose music and life story helped her to find her own voice, American Nina Simone.
Radio 3 presenter Ian Skelly celebrates the composer who helped him see humanity as integrated with nature, Frenchman Jean Mouton.
Radio 3 presenter Elizabeth Alker celebrates the first 'unclassified' composer, Russian Sofia Gubaidulina.
Radio 3 presenter Hannah French celebrates the composer who liberates her from imposter syndrome, Venetian Barbara Strozzi.
Radio 3’s veteran jazz broadcaster Geoffrey Smith concludes his series on perceptions of jazz in Britain, told through his own experience as an American settling in the UK nearly 50 years ago.
In 1963, the great tenorist Sonny Rollins provided one of the high points of Geoffrey's jazz life in a gig at the Minor Key in Detroit. Fresh from the famous sabbatical that produced his album The Bridge, he was in towering form. Nearly four decades later in October 1999 Rollins came to London for a performance at the Barbican just a few days after the fatal rail crash outside Paddington station. At the start of the concert, he announced he wanted to dedicate it to the people who had died "in hopes that they are somewhere listening". Then he played with unforgettable power and invention - Rollins at his best, than which there is nothing greater in jazz. And in the succeeding years, every time he returned to the Barbican, he produced a concert at that same peerless level, leaving his audience crying for more. Geoffrey Smith reflects on the connection this great American musician forged with his British audience over this series of astonishing performances.
Writer and broadcaster Geoffrey Smith continues his series on the changing perceptions of jazz in Britain, by taking a closer look at celebrated British pianist and composer Stan Tracey.
Stan was an abiding presence in Geoffrey's jazz media life, as reviewer and interviewer, and Geoffrey thinks of him not just as a paragon of British jazz, but of jazz in Britain. He was the real thing, a jazz muso to the bone, totally committed to the music. And to him that's what it was. He once told Geoffrey that when he went out to a gig, he didn't say to himself, "I'm going to play some jazz," but "I'm going to play some music." Jazz was his music virtually from the time he heard it, trailing down the stairs from the flat above his family home. His route to jazz keyboard went through an accordion - with which he happily played pass-the-hat gigs in pub - to achieving his own style on piano, following trips to New York as a member of shipboard bands in ‘Geraldo's Navy’. He later became house pianist at Ronnie's Scott's and a musician's favourite - the great Sonny Rollins once asked, "does anyone here realise how good he is?" Geoffrey pays tribute to a British player with an unmistakably quirky, determined personal style.
Geoffrey Smith continues his series on changing perceptions of jazz in Britain, focusing on the visits of two celebrated American artists, Duke Ellington and Bud Freeman.
Britain has always been a favourite destination for American jazz stars. It played a key role in the career of Duke Ellington, whose visit here in 1933 generated such enthusiasm among the musical elite that it convinced him to attempt more ambitious musical works. Equally smitten by the mix of British history, culture and style was the legendary Chicago saxophonist Bud Freeman, whose British affinity took roots in the 20s when he and his fellow Chicago jazz pioneers adopted the Prince of Wales as their model for dress and behaviour, and honoured him with their composition, Prince of Wails. Bud settled in London in the late 70s, when Geoffrey became his regular companion for city strolls and got to know him well.
Writer and broadcaster Geoffrey Smith continues his series on the changing perceptions of jazz in Britain, focusing on the audience.
In a culture obsessed with interpreting social signs, the British are fascinated by jazz as style, attitude, behaviour. In the 1920s, jazz was the vogue music of the Bright Young Things: the Prince of Wales himself was fond of sitting in on drums with visiting Americans. On the other end of the political spectrum, the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm saw the music as the epitome of working class art. And the fixation with the purity of jazz's folk roots drove the trad jazz boom of the 1950s, a playing style that was once seen as a sign of hip progressive politics. For Geoffrey, all this signifying makes it harder to get through to the music.
Radio 3’s veteran jazz broadcaster Geoffrey Smith reflects on the changing perceptions and appreciation of jazz in Britain through his own experience as an American settling in the UK nearly 50 years ago.
In this first programme, Geoffrey questions the British term ‘jazzer’ and its jokey connotations, which are in sharp contrast to the genre’s more serious Stateside identity as American classical music. There, the genealogy and pedigree of the genre is more complex, going back to the rich musical mix of New Orleans. As John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet once said, "We didn't have Bach, Beethoven or Mozart, so we needed to create a music that could do all the things that music can do". But to the British, argues Geoffrey, the essential value of jazz is precisely that it isn't classical. Geoffrey reminds us that the two genres overlap in key expressive features, and that the immortal names in their respective pantheons have much in common.
Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns ends his series of essays on cities influenced by African migration in Cape Town.
Making his way around a city he knows intimately, respects abundantly and loves profusely, Lindsay asks what it means to be Capetonian. From the city's tragic racial history and its legacy, to the wave of migration from elsewhere in Africa, this is a place whose identity is constantly shifting. And as he concludes his series of essays, Lindsay ponders his own ambivalent feelings towards this demographic, political, social, spiritual change.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns continues his tour of great cities influenced by their relationship with Africa in Fort-de-France, the capital of the Caribbean island of Martinique.
On an island where, as he puts it, Gallic efficiency and Cartesian rigour rub shoulders with local Creole flavour, all in the enervating tropical heat, Lindsay examines the question of identity. Fort-de-France, says Lindsay, looks to Paris for her modus vivendi and to Africa for her raison d’être. So was the decision of Martinique’s most famous son - the poet, playwright, polymath, founder of the Negritude literary movement, politician and former Mayor of Fort-de-France, Aimé Césaire - to stave off independence and remain part of France, the right one? On his walk around the city Lindsay encounters French waiters, BMW-driving witch doctors, and a decapitated lady, as he considers this question.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns continues his series of essays examining five great world cities through the prism of their relationship with Africa. In the Jamaican capital, Kingston, this different lens leads to a focus not on pristine beaches, sunshine and cricket, but instead on rebellion and spirituality.
Lindsay considers Jamaica's history, intimately inter-woven with the tragedies, iniquities and horror of slavery; but also one defined by those who have refused to accept that status quo, from Queen Nanny to Marcus Garvey. And as he walks the city's streets, from downtown to New Kingston, where Jamaica's thriving community of entrepreneurs, business people and scientists is based, he ponders Kingston's spiritual connections with East Africa - and Ethiopia - and how profoundly they have affected the city.
Producer: Giles Edwards
In the second of his essays on great cities which have been influenced by African migration, writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns takes a walk around Philadelphia.
It's a city whose history is tied up with notions of America and of freedom, and as he wanders the streets of Philadelphia, Lindsay ponders the relationship between these two powerful ideas. They're not always easy to reconcile in Philadelphia - where the chronic racialised street homeless situation, the city’s poverty and stark racial divide leave him feeling a distinct lack of 'Brotherly Love' - in a city which takes that as its moniker. As Lindsay considers some of the philosophical questions which arise, he also reflects upon a community of African migrants making their home in the city with its own fascinating and surprising relationship with Philadelphia.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns introduces his new series of essays on five great cities which have been influenced by African migration, as he discusses Marseille.
Looking for inspiration to Ian Fleming's 'Thrilling Cities', Lindsay wants to eschew the loud, brash main avenues and explore instead the quiet back alleys, abandoning tourist sites in favour of lesser known, more local and edgier haunts. But he also wants to ditch the colonial mindset always looking for European influence, and instead examine how these cities have been affected by migration from Africa.
And in Marseille, the first of his five, Lindsay finds it all: a truly Franco-African metropolis, infused with gastronomic, religious, linguistic, musical, sartorial and literary influences from the other side of the Mediterranean.
Producer: Giles Edwards
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite used lockdown creatively. Responding to the Getty Museum’s social media challenge to reproduce a work of art using only household items, he embarked on an extraordinary project: to recreate as many artworks depicting black people as possible, posting the results on social media using the hashtag #BlackPortraiture. Over 80 artworks later, Peter’s remarkable recreations of art spanning eight centuries have made a huge impression, particularly in their relevance to the Black Lives Matter movement.
As part of Black History Month on BBC Radio 3, Peter explores five of his recreations in depth, digging deeper into the stories of the black people he has brought to life. He also shares discoveries he has made about himself, his Barbadian heritage and ancestry, through the processes of researching and recreating each portrait.
In this final episode we meet artist Sonia Boyce, whose 1982 self-portrait Rice n Peas celebrates her Black British identity through the medium of food.
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite used lockdown creatively. Responding to the Getty Museum’s social media challenge to reproduce a work of art using only household items, he embarked on an extraordinary project: to recreate as many artworks depicting black people as possible, posting the results on social media using the hashtag #BlackPortraiture. Over 80 artworks later, Peter’s remarkable recreations of art spanning eight centuries have made a huge impression, particularly in their relevance to the Black Lives Matter movement.
As part of Black History Month on BBC Radio 3, Peter explores five of his recreations in depth, digging deeper into the stories of the black people he has brought to life. He also shares discoveries he has made about himself, his Barbadian heritage and ancestry, through the processes of researching and recreating each portrait.
In this fourth episode we meet a formerly enslaved African who has just been granted his freedom following Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, as depicted by Scottish artist Thomas Stuart Smith in his portrait The Pipe of Freedom.
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite used lockdown creatively. Responding to the Getty Museum’s social media challenge to reproduce a work of art using only household items, he embarked on an extraordinary project: to recreate as many artworks depicting black people as possible, posting the results on social media using the hashtag #BlackPortraiture. Over 80 artworks later, Peter’s remarkable recreations of art spanning eight centuries have made a huge impression, particularly in their relevance to the Black Lives Matter movement.
As part of Black History Month on BBC Radio 3, Peter explores five of his recreations in depth, digging deeper into the stories of the black people he has brought to life. He also shares discoveries he has made about himself, his Barbadian heritage and ancestry, through the processes of researching and recreating each portrait.
In this third episode we meet Emmanuel Rio, horn player and gardener in the employ of Emperor Francis I of Austria, as depicted by Austrian artist Albert Schindler in 1836.
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite used lockdown creatively. Responding to the Getty Museum’s social media challenge to reproduce a work of art using only household items, he embarked on an extraordinary project: to recreate as many artworks depicting black people as possible, posting the results on social media using the hashtag #BlackPortraiture. Over 80 artworks later, Peter’s remarkable recreations of art spanning eight centuries have made a huge impression, particularly in their relevance to the Black Lives Matter movement.
As part of Black History Month on BBC Radio 3, Peter explores five of his recreations in depth, digging deeper into the stories of the black people he has brought to life. He also shares discoveries he has made about himself, his Barbadian heritage and ancestry, through the processes of researching and recreating each portrait.
In this second episode we meet the anonymous boy who appears in the extravagant 17th-century painting The Paston Treasure, a still life that documents a wealthy family's lavish collection of objects – including a human being.
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite used lockdown creatively. Responding to the Getty Museum’s social media challenge to reproduce a work of art using only household items, he embarked on an extraordinary project: to recreate as many artworks depicting black people as possible, posting the results on social media using the hashtag #BlackPortraiture. Over 80 artworks later, Peter’s remarkable recreations of art spanning eight centuries have made a huge impression, particularly in their relevance to the Black Lives Matter movement.
As part of Black History Month on BBC Radio 3, Peter explores five of his recreations in depth, digging deeper into the stories of the black people he has brought to life. He also shares discoveries he has made about himself, his Barbadian heritage and ancestry, through the processes of researching and recreating each portrait.
In this first episode we meet Joseph Johnson, the maimed Georgian street performer and former sailor whose act involved wearing an enormous model of a ship on his head.
Five essays reflect on the impact of the Puritan Pilgrims setting sail on the ship the Mayflower 400 years ago, from Plymouth in England heading west to “the New World”. Writers look at what the anniversary means to Americans in 2020, and create portraits of some of the key players: two of the passengers, and two of the Native Americans who met them.
The tale of the 'Pilgrim Fathers' became part of the foundation myth of the United States. On the 400th anniversary of their setting sail, Nick Bryant (BBC New York correspondent) gives an overview of what the anniversary means in America this year, at a time when that myth is under scrutiny more than ever, and Margaret Verble (Cherokee writer, her book ‘Maud’s Line’ a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer) explores the motivations of Tisquantum, Native American ally and translator to the Pilgrims. Michael Goldfarb (American author, journalist and broadcaster) writes a portrait of John Alden, the crew member turned colonist, Rebecca Fraser (Historian and author of ‘The Mayflower: the Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America’) uncovers the story of Susanna White-Winslow, Mayflower passenger, and David Silverman (American historian and author) looks at the decisions facing Metacom: a child when the Mayflower landed, he would become a resistance leader.
David J Silverman, American historian and author of ‘This Land Is Their Land’, recounts the life of Metacom, son of Massasoit, who broke the peace his father had forged with the settlers and waged a resistance that would change the course of American history.
Five essays reflect on the impact of the Puritan Pilgrims setting sail on the ship the Mayflower 400 years ago, from Plymouth in England heading west to “the New World”. Writers look at what the anniversary means to Americans in 2020, and create portraits of some of the key players: two of the passengers, and two of the Native Americans who met them.
The tale of the 'Pilgrim Fathers' became part of the foundation myth of the United States. On the 400th anniversary of their setting sail, Nick Bryant (BBC New York correspondent) gives an overview of what the anniversary means in America this year, at a time when that myth is under scrutiny more than ever, and Margaret Verble (Cherokee writer, her book ‘Maud’s Line’ a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer) explores the motivations of Tisquantum, Native American ally and translator to the Pilgrims. Michael Goldfarb (American author, journalist and broadcaster) writes a portrait of John Alden, the crew member turned colonist, Rebecca Fraser (Historian and author of ‘The Mayflower: the Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America’) uncovers the story of Susanna White-Winslow, Mayflower passenger, and David Silverman (American historian and author) looks at the decisions facing Metacom: a child when the Mayflower landed, he would become a resistance leader.
Rebecca Fraser, author of ‘The Mayflower: The Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America’, imagines the little recorded life of Susanna Winslow, a woman who gave birth on board the Mayflower and founded a new generation.
Five essays reflect on the impact of the Puritan Pilgrims setting sail on the ship the Mayflower 400 years ago, from Plymouth in England heading west to “the New World”. Writers look at what the anniversary means to Americans in 2020, and create portraits of some of the key players: two of the passengers, and two of the Native Americans who met them.
The tale of the 'Pilgrim Fathers' became part of the foundation myth of the United States. On the 400th anniversary of their setting sail, Nick Bryant (BBC New York correspondent) gives an overview of what the anniversary means in America this year, at a time when that myth is under scrutiny more than ever, and Margaret Verble (Cherokee writer, her book ‘Maud’s Line’ a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer) explores the motivations of Tisquantum, Native American ally and translator to the Pilgrims. Michael Goldfarb (American author, journalist and broadcaster) writes a portrait of John Alden, the crew member turned colonist, Rebecca Fraser (Historian and author of ‘The Mayflower: the Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America’) uncovers the story of Susanna White-Winslow, Mayflower passenger, and David Silverman (American historian and author) looks at the decisions facing Metacom: a child when the Mayflower landed, he would become a resistance leader.
Michael Goldfarb, American journalist, broadcaster and author of 'Emancipation: How Liberating Europe's Jews from the Ghetto Led to Revolution and Renaissance', considers the life and legacy of John Alden, the Mayflower ship's cooper who became a settler.
Five essays reflect on the impact of the Puritan Pilgrims setting sail on the ship the Mayflower 400 years ago, from Plymouth in England heading west to “the New World”. Writers look at what the anniversary means to Americans in 2020, and create portraits of some of the key players: two of the passengers, and two of the Native Americans who met them.
The tale of the 'Pilgrim Fathers' became part of the foundation myth of the United States. On the 400th anniversary of their setting sail, Nick Bryant (BBC New York correspondent) gives an overview of what the anniversary means in America this year, at a time when that myth is under scrutiny more than ever, and Margaret Verble (Cherokee writer, her book ‘Maud’s Line’ a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer) explores the motivations of Tisquantum, Native American ally and translator to the Pilgrims. Michael Goldfarb (American author, journalist and broadcaster) writes a portrait of John Alden, the crew member turned colonist, Rebecca Fraser (Historian and author of ‘The Mayflower: the Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America’) uncovers the story of Susanna White-Winslow, Mayflower passenger, and David Silverman (American historian and author) looks at the decisions facing Metacom: a child when the Mayflower landed, he would become a resistance leader.
Margaret Verble, author of the Pulitzer finalist novel ‘Maud’s Line’ and ‘Cherokee America’, considers the life and legacy of Squanto, a Native American man who acted as an interpreter and guide to the Pilgrim settlers, whose motives have been blurred by history.
Five essays reflect on the impact of the Puritan Pilgrims setting sail on the ship the Mayflower 400 years ago, from Plymouth in England heading west to “the New World”. Writers look at what the anniversary means to Americans in 2020, and create portraits of some of the key players: two of the passengers, and two of the Native Americans who met them.
The tale of the 'Pilgrim Fathers' became part of the foundation myth of the United States. On the 400th anniversary of their setting sail, Nick Bryant (BBC New York correspondent) gives an overview of what the anniversary means in America this year, at a time when that myth is under scrutiny more than ever. Among the other essays this week, Margaret Verble (Cherokee writer, her book ‘Maud’s Line’ a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer) explores the motivations of Tisquantum, Native American ally and translator to the Pilgrims, Michael Goldfarb (American author, journalist and broadcaster) writes a portrait of John Alden, the crew member turned colonist, Rebecca Fraser (Historian and author of ‘The Mayflower: the Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America’) uncovers the story of Susanna White-Winslow, Mayflower passenger, and David Silverman (American historian and author) looks at the decisions facing Metacom: a child when the Mayflower landed, he would become a resistance leader.
In the first essay this week Nick Bryant gives his personal reflections on what the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower means to Americans – from Trump supporters to Native American activists - creating a picture of the USA in 2020 and the anniversary's place in it.
Dina Rezk from the University of Reading looks at politics and the role of humour as she profiles Bassem Youssef “the Jon Stewart of Egyptian satire”. As protests reverberate around the world she looks back at the Arab Spring and asks what we can learn from the popular culture that took off during that uprising and asks whether those freedoms remain. You can hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about filming the Arab Spring https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005sjw and in a discussion about Mocking Power past and present https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dzww
You can find of Dina's research https://egyptrevolution2011.ac.uk/
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
New Generation Thinker Brendan McGeever traces the links between anti-semitism now and pogroms in the former Soviet Union and the language used to describe this form of racism. Brendan McGeever lectures at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck University of London. You can hear him discussing an exhibition at the Jewish Museum exploring racial stereotypes in a Free Thinking episode called Sebald, anti-semitism, Carolyn Forché https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00050d2
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
Prison breaks loom large in both literature and pop culture. But how should we evaluate them ethically? New Generation Thinker Jeffrey Howard asks what a world without prison would look like. His essay explores whether those unjustly incarcerated have the moral right to break out, whether the rest of us have an obligation to help -- and what the answers teach us about the ethics of punishment today. Jeffrey Howard is an Associate Professor in the Political Science Dept at University College, London whose work on dangerous speech has been funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. You can find him discussing hate speech in a Free Thinking Episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006tnf
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics who can turn their research into radio.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Earlier periods of history have seen more people with scarring to their faces from duelling injuries and infectious diseases but what stopped this leading to a greater tolerance of facial difference? Historian Emily Cock considers the case of the Puritan William Prynne and looks at a range of strategies people used to improve their looks from eye patches to buying replacement teeth from the mouths of the poor, whose low-sugar diets kept their dentures better preserved than their aristocratic neighbours. In portraits and medical histories she finds examples of the elision between beauty and morality. With techniques such as ‘Metoposcopy’, which focused on interpreting the wrinkles on your forehead and the fact that enacting the law led to deliberate cut marks being made - this Essay reflects on the difficult terrain of judging by appearance.
Emily Cock is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cardiff working on a project looking at Disfigurement in Britain and its Colonies 1600 – 1850. You can hear her discussing her research with Fay Alberti, who works on facial transplants, in a New Thinking podcast episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast called About Face https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p080p2bc
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Alex Mansfield
New Generation Thinker Majed Akhter explores how large dam projects continue to form reservoirs of hope for a sustainable future. Despite their known drawbacks, our love affair with dams has not abated – across the world more than 3,500 dams are in various stages of construction. In Pakistan this has become entwined with nationalism, both inside the community and in the diaspora - but what are the dangers of this “dam fever” ? This Essay traces the history of river development in the region, from the early twentieth century “canal colonies” in Punjab, to Cold War mega-projects, to the contemporary drive to build large new dams. Previously an engineer and a resource economist, Majed Akhter now lectures in geography at King’s College London. you can hear him discussing the politics of rivers in a Free Thinking episode called Rivers and geopolitics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00051hb
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Jade Halbert lectures in fashion but has never done any sewing. She swaps pen and paper for needle and thread to create a dress from a Jean Muir pattern. In a diary charting her progress, she reflects on the skills of textile workers she has interviewed as part of a project charting the fashion trade in Glasgow and upon the banning of pins on a factory floor, the experiences of specialist sleeve setters and cutters, and whether it is ok to lick your chalk. Jade Halbert is a Lecturer, Fashion Business and Cultural Studies at the University of Huddersfield. You can find her investigation into fashion and the high street as a Radio 3 Sunday Feature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gvpn and taking part in a Free Thinking discussion called The Joy of Sewing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002mk2
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
There is fascinating evidence that 5,000 years ago, people living in Britain and Ireland had a deep and meaningful relationship with the underworld seen in the carved chalk, animal bones and human skeletons found at Cranborne Chase in Dorset in a large pit, at the base of which had been sunk a 7-metre-deep shaft. Other examples considered in this Essay include Carrowkeel in County Sligo, the passage tombs in the Boyne Valley in eastern Ireland and the Priddy Circles in the Mendip Hills in Somerset. If prehistoric people regarded the earth as a powerful, animate being that needed to be placated and honoured, perhaps there are lessons here for our own attitudes to the world beneath our feet.
Susan Greaney is a New Generation Thinker who works for English Heritage at Stonehenge and who is studying for her PHD at Cardiff University. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can hear her journey to Japan to compare the Jomon civilisations with Stonehenge as a Radio 3 Sunday Feature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hgqx
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Advances in robotics and virtual reality are giving us ever more 'realistic' ways of representing the world, but the quest for vivid visualisation is thousands of years old. This essay takes the guide to oratory and getting your message across written by the ancient Roman Quintilian and focuses in on a wall painting of The Judgment of Solomon in an Elizabethan house in the village of Much Hadham in Hertfordshire. Often written off as stiff, formal and artificial with arguments that the Reformation fear of idolatry stifled Elizabethan art, New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday argues that story telling and conveying vivid detail was an important part of painting in this period as art was used to communicate messages to serve social, political and religious ends. Christina Faraday is a New Generation Thinker who lectures in the History of Art at the University of Cambridge. You can hear her discussing the history of fairgrounds at the end of a Free Thinking episode called Kindness https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j9cd and her work on an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of the painting of Nicholas Hilliard in a Free Thinking episode about the joy of miniatures https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002mk2
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
This Essay tells a story of political marches and everyday acts of radical care; of sledgehammers and bags of rice; of the struggles for justice waged by migrant domestic workers but it also charts the realisation of Ella Parry-Davies, that acknowledging publicly for the first time her own condition of epilepsy – or “coming out crip” – is part of the story of our blindness to inequalities in healthcare and living conditions faced by many migrant workers.
Ella Parry-Davies is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London working on an oral history project creating sound walks by interviewing migrant domestic workers in the UK and Lebanon. You can hear her discussing her research in a Free Thinking episode called Stanley Spencer, Domestic Servants, Surrogacy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000573q
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year who can turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
When Tom Smith sets out to research allegations of racism in Berlin’s club scene, he finds himself face to face with his own past in techno’s birthplace: Detroit. Visiting the music distributor Submerge, he considers the legacy of the pioneers Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, the influence of Afro-futurism and the work done in Berlin to popularise techno by figures including Kemal Kurum and Claudia Wahjudi. But the vibrant culture which seeks to be inclusive has been accused of whiteness and the Essay ends with a consideration of the experiences of clubbers depicted in the poetry of Michael Hyperion Küppers.
Tom Smith is a New Generation Thinker who lectures in German at the University of St Andrews. You can find another Essay from him called Masculinity Comrades in Arms recorded at the York Festival of Ideas 2019 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061m5 and a New Thinking podcast discussion Rubble Culture to techno in post war Germany https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07srdmh
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
Poet Kenneth Steven finds inspiration in Scotland's west coast islands. Each memoir concludes with a poem written about the island he has visited.
- The Holy Island: a personal reflection on an uninhabited island of spiritual peace.
Poet Kenneth Steven finds inspiration in Scotland's west coast islands. Each memoir concludes with a poem written about the island he has visited.
- Barra: Gaelic songs and dances at the southern end of the Outer Hebrides.
Poet Kenneth Steven finds inspiration in Scotland's west coast islands. Each memoir concludes with a poem written about the island he has visited.
- Staffa: the carved pillars and grottos that brought visitors from all over the world.
Poet Kenneth Steven finds inspiration in Scotland's west coast islands. Each memoir concludes with a poem written about the island he has visited.
- Jura: two majestic mountains and a whirlpool, where George Orwell found inspiration for 1984.
Poet Kenneth Steven finds inspiration in Scotland's west coast islands. Each memoir concludes with a poem written about the island he has visited.
- Mingulay: in the Outer Hebrides, an island comparable in its wild beauty and isolation to St Kilda.
Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present.
In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five new diaries written during the unprecedented period of recent weeks, reflecting on the present moment and reaching out to another historical literary diarist for aid and inspiration.
- Ian Sansom: Mince on Toast with Christopher Isherwood
Ian Sansom reflects on the supreme sociability of Christopher Isherwood through the extreme unsociability of social isolation.
Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present.
In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five new diaries written during the unprecedented period of recent weeks, reflecting on the present moment and reaching out to another historical literary diarist for aid and inspiration.
- Ian Sansom: Cheese Dreams with Graham Greene
Ian Sansom explores his own and Graham Greene’s active dream life.
Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present.
In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five new diaries written during the unprecedented period of recent weeks, reflecting on the present moment and reaching out to another historical literary diarist for aid and inspiration.
- Helen Mort: More Than Enough
Poet Helen Mort's daily exercise walks with her toddler echo the rooted explorations of Dorothy Wordsworth in the Lake District.
Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present.
In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five new diaries written during the unprecedented period of recent weeks, reflecting on the present moment and reaching out to another historical literary diarist for aid and inspiration.
- AL Kennedy: Hope On, Hope Ever
The fortitude and humanity in the diaries of Antarctic explorer Edward Wilson are a counterpoint and inspiration to AL Kennedy in her days denied human contact and open space.
Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present.
In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five new diaries written during the unprecedented period of recent weeks, reflecting on the present moment and reaching out to another historical literary diarist for aid and inspiration.
- AL Kennedy: The Towers We Founded and the Lamps We Lit
From the stasis of her confinement, AL Kennedy pursues the ever-restless wanderings of Robert Louis Stevenson.
leading writers share the secrets of their internal places of refuge in times of crisis
leading writers share the secrets of places of internal refuge in crisis 4.Tessa Hadley
Paul Robeson's life and struggle through songs .Tayo Aluko on Robeson's Zog Nit Keynmol.
Jon Gower, writer and keen walker of the Welsh mountains, explores the unique characteristics of each of Wales's five ranges and reflects on what they mean to the people who live among them.
For many people, Wales is synonymous with its mountains. They occupy a unique place in the country's ancient mythology, its history and its culture, defining who rules the country, who lives in it, and how they survive. But each of the mountain ranges of Wales has its own unique character. In this series of The Essay, Jon Gower paints a detailed portrait of the landscape of these higher places, and in doing so, explores how they’ve shaped the country's psyche.
In ‘The Preseli Mountains’, Jon explores the most mystical range of mountains, which are barely mountains, though the highest of them, Foel Cwmcerwyn, stands tall and sentinel enough to have guided the sailors of west Wales safely to shore. On a clear day you can see not only the patterned field tapestries of Pembrokeshire – shot through with the gold threads of gorse hedges – but also nine other Welsh counties, and the charcoal edge of Ireland across the sea.
Producer: Megan Jones for BBC Cymru Wales
Jon Gower, writer and keen walker of the Welsh mountains, explores the unique characteristics of each of Wales's five ranges and reflects on what they mean to the people who live among them.
For many people, Wales is synonymous with its mountains. They occupy a unique place in the country's ancient mythology, its history and its culture, defining who rules the country, who lives in it, and how they survive. But each of the mountain ranges of Wales has its own unique character. In this series of The Essay, Jon Gower paints a detailed portrait of the landscape of these higher places, and in doing so, explores how they’ve shaped the country's psyche.
In his essay on Epynt, Jon reflects on a landscape that offers meagre grazing for animals, dotted with small ponds and peat bogs, and which remains haunted by the eviction of many inhabitants by the War Office in 1939. Given over to military training, the scything of wind through the tough grasses is for most of the year punctuated by the sound of mortar fire, anti-tank weaponry and machine guns.
Producer: Megan Jones for BBC Cymru Wales
Jon Gower, writer and keen walker of the Welsh mountains, explores the unique characteristics of each of Wales's five ranges and reflects on what they mean to the people who live among them.
For many people, Wales is synonymous with its mountains. They occupy a unique place in the country's ancient mythology, its history and its culture, defining who rules the country, who lives in it, and how they survive. But each of the mountain ranges of Wales has its own unique character. In this series of The Essay, Jon Gower paints a detailed portrait of the landscape of these higher places, and in doing so, explores how they’ve shaped the country's psyche.
Jon sees the Brecon Beacons as being all about water - from their formation by gargantuan glaciers, rumbling slowly across the land gouging valleys and shuffling rocks ever onward, to the many waterfalls tumbling into space. The most remarkable of these is Sgwd yr Eira, the ‘fall of snow’, a veritable avalanche of spume and rush where you can actually walk behind the curtain of water.
Producer: Megan Jones for BBC Cymru Wales
Jon Gower, writer and keen walker of the Welsh mountains, explores the unique characteristics of each of Wales's five ranges and reflects on what they mean to the people who live among them.
For many people, Wales is synonymous with its mountains. They occupy a unique place in the country's ancient mythology, its history and its culture, defining who rules the country, who lives in it, and how they survive. But each of the mountain ranges of Wales has its own unique character. In this series of The Essay, Jon Gower paints a detailed portrait of the landscape of these higher places, and in doing so, explores how they’ve shaped the country's psyche.
In ‘The Black Mountains’, Jon looks at the way these hills, benign and balmy on some occasions, at others beset by fierce weather, have attracted writers and poets to it like a honeypot, from Owen Sheers to Jan Morris: just as Ordnance Survey maps are covered in contour lines, so too is the landscape around here seemingly covered in lines, of poetry.
Producer: Megan Jones for BBC Cymru Wales
Jon Gower, writer and keen walker of the Welsh mountains, explores the unique characteristics of each of Wales' five ranges and reflects on what they mean to the people who live among them.
For many people, Wales is synonymous with its mountains. They occupy a unique place in the country's ancient mythology, its history and its culture, defining who rules the country, who lives in it, and how they survive. But each of the mountain ranges of Wales has its own unique character. In this series of The Essay, Jon Gower paints a detailed portrait of the landscape of these higher places, and in doing so, explores how they’ve shaped the country's psyche.
In the first essay Jon considers Snowdonia as a place of refuge, from the Welsh princes that built their castles here to take advantage of the natural defensive system, to the rare plants finding sanctuary on almost unscalable ledges.
In ‘The Black Mountains’, Jon looks at the way these hills, benign and balmy on some occasions, at others beset by fierce weather, have attracted writers and poets to it like a honeypot, from Owen Sheers to Jan Morris: just as Ordnance Survey maps are covered in contour lines, so too is the landscape around here seemingly covered in lines, of poetry.
Jon sees the Brecon Beacons as being all about water - from their formation by gargantuan glaciers, rumbling slowly across the land gouging valleys and shuffling rocks ever onward, to the many waterfalls tumbling into space. The most remarkable of these is Sgwd yr Eira, the ‘fall of snow’, a veritable avalanche of spume and rush where you can actually walk behind the curtain of water.
In his essay on Epynt, Jon reflects on a landscape that offers meagre grazing for animals, dotted with small ponds and peat bogs, and which remains haunted by the eviction of many inhabitants by the War Office in 1939. Given over to military training, the scything of wind through the tough grasses is for most of the year punctuated by the sound of mortar fire, anti-tank weaponry and machine guns.
And in ‘The Preseli Mountains’, Jon explores the most mystical range of mountains, which are barely mountains, though the highest of them, Foel Cwmcerwyn, stands tall and sentinel enough to have guided the sailors of west Wales safely to shore. On a clear day you can see not only the patterned field tapestries of Pembrokeshire – shot through with the gold threads of gorse hedges – but also nine other Welsh counties, and the charcoal edge of Ireland across the sea.
Producer: Megan Jones for BBC Cymru Wales
The novel Miss Marjoribanks (1866) brought to life a large comic heroine who bucked 19th-century conventions. New Generation Thinker Clare Walker Gore outlines the prolific writing career of Margaret Oliphant and laments the way she was used by fellow novelist Virginia Woolf as a symbol of the dangers of needing to write for money to keep yourself and your family afloat.
Producer: Paula McGinley
Author of the first prose romance published in England in 1621, her reputation at court was ruined by her thinly veiled autobiographical writing. Visit the family home, Penshurst Place in Kent, and you can see Lady Mary Wroth's portrait, but New Generation Thinker Nandini Das says you can also find her in the pages of her book The Countess of Montgomery's Urania which places centre stage women who "love and are not afraid to love." Scandal led to her withdrawing it from sale and herself from public life.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
New Generation Thinker Sophie Coulombeau argues that we should salute this woman who supported her family through her writing, who perfected sonnets about solitude before Wordsworth began writing his, and who explored the struggles of women and refugees in her fiction. Mother to 12 children, Charlotte Turner Smith wrote ten novels, three poetry collections and four children's books and translated French fiction. In 1788 her first novel, Emmeline, sold 1500 copies within months but by the time of her death in 1803 her popularity had declined and she had become destitute.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
What is a writer's duty? Katie Cooper considers Storm Jameson's campaigning for refugees, her 1940 appeal To the Conscience of the World and why her fiction fell out of favour but is now seeing a revival of interest.
Born in Yorkshire in 1891, she wrote war novels and speculative fiction, collections of criticism - including an analysis of modern drama in Europe, the introduction to the 1952 British edition of The Diary of Anne Frank and a host of novels set in European countries. During the Second World War years she was head of PEN, the association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote literature and intellectual co-operation.
Katie Cooper teaches at the University of East Anglia and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. Her book, War, Nation and Europe in the Novels of Storm Jameson, is published April 2020.
Producer: Alex Mansfield
New Generation Thinker Zoe Norridge describes translating the testimony of a nurse who survived the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
In Rwanda, Yolande Mukagasana is a well-known writer, public figure and campaigner for remembrance of the genocide. She has authored three testimonies, a collection of interviews with survivors and perpetrators and two volumes of Rwandan stories. Her work has received numerous international prizes, including an Honourable Mention for the UNESCO Education for Peace Prize.
Zoe Norridge, from King’s College London, argues there should be a place for Mukagasana on our shelves in UK, alongside works from the Holocaust and other genocides. Why? Because listening to survivor voices helps us to understand the human cost of mass violence.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
As an injured soldier under house arrest, Xavier de Maistre staved off boredom by imagining every step around his drawing room was a step across a country; Virginia Woolf’s writerly wandering around central London to buy a pencil exposed the city's transformation in darkness. Inspired by these ironic quests and symbolic expeditions, five contemporary writers embark on walks of entertaining eccentricity.
Author and academic Sophie Coulombeau completes these imaginative journeys with her newborn baby navigating York - a city and self once familiar, but now elusive and uncanny.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
As an injured soldier under house arrest, Xavier de Maistre staved off boredom by imagining every step around his drawing room was a step across a country; Virginia Woolf’s writerly wandering around central London to buy a pencil exposed the city's transformation in darkness. Inspired by these ironic quests and symbolic expeditions, five contemporary writers embark on walks of entertaining eccentricity.
In this episode, journalist, writer and keen walker Nat Segnit seeks recovery and retreat in the unseen mountains of Ibiza, a mysticism-inspired path once trodden by Walter Benjamin.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
As an injured soldier under house arrest, Xavier de Maistre staved off boredom by imagining every step around his drawing room was a step across a country; Virginia Woolf’s writerly wandering around central London to buy a pencil exposed the city's transformation in darkness. Inspired by these ironic quests and symbolic expeditions, five contemporary writers embark on walks of entertaining eccentricity.
In this episode, writer and Shamanic Energy Healer Stephanie Victoire has a haunting hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia, meditating on the ancient paths of Native American precursors.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
As an injured soldier under house arrest, Xavier de Maistre staved off boredom by imagining every step around his drawing room was a step across a country; Virginia Woolf’s writerly wandering around central London to buy a pencil exposed the city's transformation in darkness. Inspired by these ironic quests and symbolic expeditions, five contemporary writers embark on walks of entertaining eccentricity.
Writer Michael Donkor continues these imaginative journeys by traversing, south to north, across Wandsworth Bridge – perhaps the Thames’ most neglected crossing, but for him a conduit between adult responsibility and childhood memory.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
As an injured soldier under house arrest, Xavier de Maistre staved off boredom by imagining every step around his drawing room was a step across a country; Virginia Woolf’s writerly wandering around central London to buy a pencil exposed the city's transformation in darkness. Inspired by these ironic quests and symbolic expeditions, five contemporary writers embark on walks of entertaining eccentricity.
Lancastrian writer Jenn Ashworth begins these imaginative journeys with a trip to Preston's Harris Museum, Gallery and Library, retracing her teenage footsteps and pondering the mental riches promised within.
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Ross Sutherland takes us to the birth of modern art as he traces the extraordinary life of Arthur Cravan. Cravan's anarchic art heralded Dada , surrealism, situationism, punk rock and alternative comedy. His whole life was an extravagant show and his influence spreads right across the 20th century.
Cravan went through life using multiple mysterious personas. He was the nephew of Oscar Wilde, a boxing champion, a notorious art critic, a scandalous performer, a deserter, the husband of modernist poet Mina Loy, and was pursued by the CIA.
This mystery story, led by writer Ross Sutherland, tracks across twenty countries as Cravan's outlandish persona shifts between incarnations. Ross's journey leads him to Cravan's greatest riddle of all - his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico.
In this episode Ross investigates one of Cravan's most outrageous stunts.
This programme contains very strong language.
Writer and Presenter: Ross Sutherland Produced for the BBC by Melvin Rickarby Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Excerpt from Cravan's Weird Seance courtesy of Daniel Oliver
Ross Sutherland takes us to the birth of modern art as he traces the extraordinary life of Arthur Cravan. Cravan's anarchic art heralded Dada , surrealism, situationism, punk rock and alternative comedy. His whole life was an extravagant show and his influence spreads right across the 20th century.
Cravan went through life using multiple mysterious personas. He was the nephew of Oscar Wilde, a boxing champion, a notorious art critic, a scandalous performer, a deserter, the husband of modernist poet Mina Loy, and was pursued by the CIA.
This mystery story, led by writer Ross Sutherland, tracks across twenty countries as Cravan's outlandish persona shifts between incarnations. Ross's journey leads him to Cravan's greatest riddle of all - his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico.
In this episode, with Ross hitting a series of blank walls in his research, he attempts to find search the elusive Roger Conover, an authority on Arthur Cravan.
This programme contains very strong language.
Writer and Presenter: Ross Sutherland Produced for the BBC by Melvin Rickarby Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Excerpt from Cravan's Weird Seance courtesy of Daniel Oliver
Ross Sutherland takes us to the birth of modern art as he traces the extraordinary life of Arthur Cravan. Cravan's anarchic art heralded Dada , surrealism, situationism, punk rock and alternative comedy. His whole life was an extravagant show and his influence spreads right across the 20th century.
Cravan went through life using multiple mysterious personas. He was the nephew of Oscar Wilde, a boxing champion, a notorious art critic, a scandalous performer, a deserter, the husband of modernist poet Mina Loy, and was pursued by the CIA.
This mystery story, led by writer Ross Sutherland, tracks across twenty countries as Cravan's outlandish persona shifts between incarnations. Ross's journey leads him to Cravan's greatest riddle of all - his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico.
In this episode Ross investigates the aftermath of Cravan's mysterious vanishing,
This programme contains very strong language.
Writer and Presenter: Ross Sutherland Produced for the BBC by Melvin Rickarby Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Ross Sutherland takes us to the birth of modern art as he traces the extraordinary life of Arthur Cravan. Cravan's anarchic art heralded Dada , surrealism, situationism, punk rock and alternative comedy. His whole life was an extravagant show and his influence spreads right across the 20th century.
Cravan went through life using multiple mysterious personas. He was the nephew of Oscar Wilde, a boxing champion, a notorious art critic, a scandalous performer, a deserter, the husband of modernist poet Mina Loy, and was pursued by the CIA.
This mystery story, led by writer Ross Sutherland, tracks across twenty countries as Cravan's outlandish persona shifts between incarnations. Ross's journey leads him to Cravan's greatest riddle of all - his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico.
In this episode Ross investigates Cravan's relationship with modernist poet Mina Loy.
This programme contains very strong language.
Writer and Presenter: Ross Sutherland Produced for the BBC by Melvin Rickarby Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Ross Sutherland takes us to the birth of modern art as he traces the extraordinary life of Arthur Cravan. Cravan's anarchic art heralded Dada , surrealism, situationism, punk rock and alternative comedy. His whole life was an extravagant show and his influence spreads right across the 20th century.
Cravan went through life using multiple mysterious personas. He was the nephew of Oscar Wilde, a boxing champion, a notorious art critic, a scandalous performer, a deserter, the husband of modernist poet Mina Loy, and was pursued by the CIA.
This mystery story, led by writer Ross Sutherland, tracks across twenty countries as Cravan's outlandish persona shifts between incarnations. Ross's journey leads him to Cravan's greatest riddle of all - his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico.
In this episode Ross investigates Cravan's mutiple personas, to find out what lay beneath.
This programme contains very strong language.
Writer and Presenter: Ross Sutherland Produced for the BBC by Melvin Rickarby Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Excerpt from Cravan's Weird Seance courtesy of Daniel Oliver
Ross Sutherland takes us to the birth of modern art as he traces the extraordinary life of Arthur Cravan. Cravan's anarchic art heralded Dada , surrealism, situationism, punk rock and alternative comedy. His whole life was an extravagant show and his influence spreads right across the 20th century.
Cravan went through life using multiple mysterious personas. He was the nephew of Oscar Wilde, a boxing champion, a notorious art critic, a scandalous performer, a deserter, the husband of modernist poet Mina Loy, and was pursued by the CIA.
This mystery story, led by writer Ross Sutherland, tracks across twenty countries as Cravan's outlandish persona shifts between incarnations. Ross's journey leads him to Cravan's greatest riddle of all - his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico.
In this episode Ross investigates how Cravan's used his art to evade the authorities as the First World War began.
Writer and Presenter: Ross Sutherland Produced for the BBC by Melvin Rickarby Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Excerpt from Cravan's Weird Seance courtesy of Daniel Oliver
Ross Sutherland takes us to the birth of modern art as he traces the extraordinary life of Arthur Cravan. Cravan's anarchic art heralded Dada , surrealism, situationism, punk rock and alternative comedy. His whole life was an extravagant show and his influence spreads right across the 20th century.
Cravan went through life using multiple mysterious personas. He was the nephew of Oscar Wilde, a boxing champion, a notorious art critic, a scandalous performer, a deserter, the husband of modernist poet Mina Loy, and was pursued by the CIA.
This mystery story, led by writer Ross Sutherland, tracks across twenty countries as Cravan's outlandish persona shifts between incarnations. Ross's journey leads him to Cravan's greatest riddle of all - his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico.
In this episode Ross investigates why Cravan is known as the father of performance art.
Writer and Presenter: Ross Sutherland Produced for the BBC by Melvin Rickarby Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Excerpt from Cravan's Weird Seance courtesy of Daniel Oliver
Ross Sutherland takes us to the birth of modern art as he traces the extraordinary life of Arthur Cravan. Cravan's anarchic art heralded Dada , surrealism, situationism, punk rock and alternative comedy. His whole life was an extravagant show and his influence spreads right across the 20th century.
Cravan went through life using multiple mysterious personas. He was the nephew of Oscar Wilde, a boxing champion, a notorious art critic, a scandalous performer, a deserter, the husband of modernist poet Mina Loy, and was pursued by the CIA.
This mystery story, led by writer Ross Sutherland, tracks across twenty countries as Cravan's outlandish persona shifts between incarnations. Ross's journey leads him to Cravan's greatest riddle of all - his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico.
In this episode Ross investigates Cravan's work as a notorious art critic.
This programme contains very strong language.
Writer and Presenter: Ross Sutherland Produced for the BBC by Melvin Rickarby Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Excerpt from Cravan's Weird Seance courtesy of Daniel Oliver
Ross Sutherland takes us to the birth of modern art as he traces the extraordinary life of Arthur Cravan. Cravan's anarchic art heralded Dada , surrealism, situationism, punk rock and alternative comedy. His whole life was an extravagant show and his influence spreads right across the 20th century.
Cravan went through life using multiple mysterious personas. He was the nephew of Oscar Wilde, a boxing champion, a notorious art critic, a scandalous performer, a deserter, the husband of modernist poet Mina Loy, and was pursued by the CIA.
This mystery story, led by writer Ross Sutherland, tracks across twenty countries as Cravan's outlandish persona shifts between incarnations. Ross's journey leads him to Cravan's greatest riddle of all - his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico.
In this episode Ross investigates how Cravan's career as a boxer influenced his art.
This programme contains very strong language.
Writer and Presenter: Ross Sutherland Produced for the BBC by Melvin Rickarby Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Excerpt from Cravan's Weird Seance courtesy of Daniel Oliver
Ross Sutherland takes us to the birth of modern art as he traces the extraordinary life of Arthur Cravan. Cravan's anarchic art heralded Dada, surrealism, situationism, punk rock and alternative comedy. His whole life was an extravagant show and his influence spreads right across the 20th century.
Cravan went through life using multiple mysterious personas. He was the nephew of Oscar Wilde, a boxing champion, a notorious art critic, a scandalous performer, a deserter, the husband of modernist poet Mina Loy, and was pursued by the CIA.
This mystery story, led by writer Ross Sutherland, tracks across twenty countries as Cravan's outlandish persona shifts between incarnations. Ross's journey leads him to Cravan's greatest riddle of all - his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico.
In this episode Ross comes to terms with Cravan's brazenly offensive poetry.
This programme contains very strong language.
Writer and Presenter: Ross Sutherland Produced for the BBC by Melvin Rickarby Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Five leading writers pick a novel they love and then write an original piece of fiction imagining what happened to the characters after the story ends.
When she first encountered Jane Eyre in the classroom, Philippa Gregory was looking for a love story - between Jane Eyre and the brooding Mr Rochester. Years later, she reads the book very differently.
Join Philippa as she explores the nuances within Charlotte Brontë's classic and writes an original scene, a new ending, for the book.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Five leading writers pick a novel they love and then write an original piece of fiction imagining what happened to the characters after the story ends.
Award-winning British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak first glimpsed Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina on a bookshelf at school. It was only years later that she managed to get her hands on a copy. The experience stirred her soul. The romance was raw, wrong and real. But the book's ending came as a surprise.
For this Boxing Day edition, Elif imagines what would happen if Anna were able to meet her creator, Tolstoy himself, after the novel's final page.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Five leading writers pick a novel they love and then write an original piece of fiction imagining what happened to the characters after the story ends.
For the six-year-old AL Kennedy, Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows provided firelight calm and comfort. She still has her childhood copy, bound up in green cloth with gold lettering, the only hardback she possessed at that age. This Christmas Day, she imagines what might have happened to Mole, Rat and Badger years after the Battle of Toad Hall.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Five leading writers pick a novel they love and then write an original piece of fiction imagining what happened to the characters after the story ends.
Man Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo first encountered Virginia Woolf's writing as a teenager, reading To the Lighthouse for her English Literature A Level. She loathed the book.
But a few years ago, she gave Woolf another go, reading Mrs Dalloway. As a writer who experiments with language and form, she marvelled at the inventiveness, how Woolf's characters float in and out of the prose.
In this Christmas Eve edition of Open Endings, Bernardine reveals her admiration for Woolf's work and imagines a different end for Clarissa Dalloway's extravagant party.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Five leading writers pick a novel they love and then write an original piece of fiction imagining what happened to the characters after the story ends.
In the first essay of the series, the crime writer Ian Rankin picks William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Like many students, Ian first encountered the novel at school but certain scenes and moments have stayed with him for the past 40 years. In this essay, Ian explores his relationship with the work as a teenager of the 1970s and imagines what might have happened to two of the shipwrecked boys, Ralph and Jack, once they reach adulthood.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Toby Jones stars as Hans Christian Andersen in five fairy-tale adaptations by Lucy Catherine that shine a light into the dark regions of the author’s mind. Each of the dramas is introduced by best-selling author and fairy-tale aficionado, Joanne Harris.
A power-hungry prince ignores the voices of reason as he embarks on a campaign of dominion over all things.
The Prince ….. Craig Parkinson Captain of the Guard ….. Ian Conningham Enemy Emissary ….. Ikky Elyas Keeper of the Coin ….. Greg Jones Advisors ….. Clive Hayward and Jessica Turner
Directed by Gemma Jenkins
Toby Jones stars as Hans Christian Andersen in five fairy tale adaptations by Lucy Catherine that shine a light into the dark regions of the author’s mind. Each of the dramas is introduced by best-selling author and fairy-tale aficionado, Joanne Harris.
Rudy hovers on the brink of romantic happiness but first he must face the ice maiden. One of the inspirations for Frozen but here, in Andersen’s original, Elsa is a far more terrifying creation.
Rudy ….. Joseph Ayre Babette ….. Sinead MacInnes Ice Maiden ….. Laura Christie Miller ….. Ian Conningham Cat ….. Clive Hayward
Directed by Gemma Jenkins
Toby Jones stars as Hans Christian Andersen in five fairy-tale adaptations by Lucy Catherine that shine a light into the dark regions of the author’s mind. Each of the dramas is introduced by best-selling author and fairy-tale aficionado, Joanne Harris.
A son rejected by his mother is given a way to exact retribution. Andersen’s own troubled relationship with his mother and his experience of childhood bullying infuse this tale of haunting strangeness.
Anne ….. Amanda Hale Mrs E ….. Heather Craney Son ….. Will Kirk Skipper ….. Adam Courting
Directed by Gemma Jenkins
Toby Jones stars as Hans Christian Andersen in five fairy-tale adaptations by Lucy Catherine that shine a light into the dark regions of the author’s mind. Each of the dramas is introduced by best-selling author and fairy-tale aficionado, Joanne Harris.
A young girl’s escape from poverty comes at a terrible price. The antiheroine in this vicious tale was based on Andersen’s loathed half sister.
Karen ….. Shannon Tarbet Lady ….. Jessica Turner Mirror ….. Sinead MacInnes Soldier ….. Ian Conningham Shoemaker’s Wife ….. Lucy Reynolds Reverend ….. Clive Hayward Executioner ….. Neil McCaul
Directed by Gemma Jenkins
Toby Jones stars as Hans Christian Andersen in five fairy-tale adaptations by Lucy Catherine that shine a light into the dark regions of the author’s mind. Each of the dramas is introduced by best-selling author and fairy-tale aficionado, Joanne Harris.
A foolish king barters his daughter’s happiness when he issues a proclamation.
King ….. Clive Hayward Princess ….. Scarlett Courtney Nicholas ….. Greg Jones Vandal ….. Ian Conningham Lord Chamberlain ….. Adam Courting Nightwatchman and Moses ….. Neil McCaul
Directed by Gemma Jenkins
Hans Christian Andersen jettisons the conventions of fairy tale logic, giving his characters realistic motivations for why they do what they do. He directly links the fantastical with the psychological . He subverts fairy tale logic whereby the good are beautiful and the bad, ugly. Without him, every fairy tale would end happily ever after and the true power of the genre might never have been realised.
Andersen acts as a tour guide, embarking on a journey through his imagination as he attempts to identify the source of his creativity.
The series delves into the darker tales including the later stories that anticipate Surrealism and Freud.
In April 1881, a young African man named John Ocansey set sail from the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) for Liverpool in order to try and discover what had happened to goods that his father had dispatched to a Liverpudlian agent. The Africans had not received the two and a half thousand pounds they were owed in exchange for the goods, and rather than sit at home and accept the fact that they had most likely been swindled, young John Ocansey had decided to journey to the world-famous port of Liverpool and claim the money that rightfully belonged to his father. Trading between Africa and Liverpool had been established for over two centuries, and was based on the slave trade in which it was understood that Africans had no rights. Even after the abolition of the trade such attitudes persisted, but Ocansey was determined that he would not be treated as a slave.
Producer Neil McCarthy
To mark the 400 years since the arrival of African slaves to America, Jamaican-born author Anne Bailey reflects on two remarkable women pertinent to this commemoration and discusses how they have influenced her journey as a Black female historian.
Mary Prince, a West Indian slave who after enduring incredible hardships at the hands of several masters obtained her freedom and wrote an abolitionist narrative that was published in Britain. And Sally Hemings - the enigmatic enslaved mistress of Thomas Jefferson who never officially received her freedom and who never wrote her own story, yet as a historical figure looms large in history and in memory.
Anne Bailey reflects on how each of them represented freedom in their own way.
Producer Neil McCarthy
To mark 400 years since the arrival of African slaves to America, David Olusoga reflects on the life of Sarah Forbes Bonetta. As a young Dahomeyan girl called Ina, she was sold into slavery and, in an extraordinary twist of fate, was gifted to Queen Victoria and became her goddaughter Sarah Forbes Bonetta.
Producer Neil McCarthy
To mark 400 years since the arrival of African slaves to America, the author Daina Ramey Berry reflects on Isaac, who led a rebellion, and whose life ended in a final act of defiance.
Reflecting on the 400-year anniversary of African arrivals in America and the legacy of slavery, Daina Ramey Berry is drawn to an enslaved man she met while researching her book The Price for their Pound of Flesh. His name is Isaac and she learned about him through a 19th century newspaper that recorded his remarkable story. He is someone she thinks of often because of his expression of soul values which enslaved people clung to and used to resist the commodification of their bodies. Daina shares Isaac’s story, his powerful statement, and legacies of slavery that reverberate today.
Producer Neil McCarthy
To mark the 400 years since the arrival of African slaves to America, the author and playwright Caryl Phillips reflects on the life of one individual.
In February 1766, a twenty-five year old African man, Philip Quaque, arrived back in his native Africa, with an English wife. He had been taken to England as a teenager to be educated as a Christian missionary. In England he had been ordained into the church, and married, and now the young man was to serve in a slave fort as both a missionary to his own African people, and a Chaplain to the English troops and merchants stationed on the coast. His was an impossible situation, trapped as he was between the hostility of his own people and the disdain of the English. For nearly half a century he managed to maintain a life balanced between these two opposing groups, and he recorded the anxieties visited upon him in a remarkable series of letters that he dispatched back to his employers in England.
Producer Neil McCarthy
In the last of five personal takes on the Weimar Republic, Ute Lemper looks at the enduring appeal of Weimar music and song.
Katie Sutton, author of The Masculine Woman in Weimar Germany looks at sexuality in the Republic.
Los Angeles, November 2019. Blade Runner's future is now ours. Ridley Scott's 1982 classic future film of replicants escaping to a retrofitted Earth and meeting their end at the hands of the washed out, titular Blade Runner, Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, is adapted from Philip K. Dick's equally classic 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
Both film and book are meditations on what it is to be human but we have been looking through the eyes of the film ever since it plunged us into its acid-rain, neon-coated, west-coast nightmare of flaming night skies, commercial ziggurats, flying cars and fake animals. Now its future is our present. We live in a world of mass species die off, environmental crisis, rapidly developing A.I., all powerful corporations and extreme divides between rich and poor.
Film and book have bled into our culture in many different ways and in this series of the Essay, we mark the year of Blade Runner, in the month of Blade Runner. The legendary writer on film, David Thomson, takes a long hard look back at Ridley Scott's rain-soaked mash-up of existential noir and artificial souls.
"Maybe you’ve never seen Blade Runner – but you think you have. It’s one of those films in our dreams and feeble memory. I used to think it was what it claimed to be, the story of a sour bounty hunter charged to eliminate or retire some dangerous escapees from the old scheme of how the universe was run."
Producer: Mark Burman
Los Angeles, November 2019. Blade Runner's future is now ours. Ridley Scott's 1982 classic future film of replicants escaping to a retro-fitted Earth and meeting their end at the hands of the washed out, titular Blade Runner, Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, is adapted from Philip K Dick's equally classic 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
Both film and book are meditations on what it is to be human but we have been looking through the eyes of the film ever since it plunged us into its acid-rain, neon-coated, west-coast nightmare of flaming night skies, commercial ziggurats, flying cars and fake animals. Now its future is our present. We live in a world of mass species die off, environmental crisis, rapidly developing A.I., all powerful corporations and extreme divides between rich and poor.
Film and book have bled into our culture in many different ways and in this series of the Essay, we mark the year of Blade Runner, in the month of Blade Runner.
Dr Beth Singler, Junior Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligence at Homerton College, Cambridge asks what is real and fake in A.I. sex and love. "Simulation forces us to think about how we can the ‘real’ that we seem so often to be confident about. Confident enough perhaps to reassure ourselves that the use of ‘fake’ humans as slave labour and sexbots is alright to be skimmed over in the dialogue of the human characters in Blade Runner. What does it say about the society in the world of Blade Runner that it is okay with slave replicants who fight our off-world wars and fulfil sexual needs for colonists? It gets worse. What does it say about a society that is okay with slave replicants who are only two years old?"
Producer: Mark Burman
Los Angeles, November 2019. Blade Runner's future is now ours. Ridley Scott's 1982 classic future film of replicants escaping to a retro-fitted Earth and meeting their end at the hands of the washed out, titular Blade Runner, Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, is adapted from Philip K Dick's equally classic 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
Both film and book are meditations on what it is to be human but we have been looking through the eyes of the film ever since it plunged us into its acid-rain, neon-coated, west-coast nightmare of flaming night skies, commercial ziggurats, flying cars and fake animals. Now its future is our present. We live in a world of mass species die off, environmental crisis, rapidly developing A.I., all powerful corporations and extreme divides between rich and poor.
Film and book have bled into our culture in many different ways and in this series of the Essay, we mark the year of Blade Runner, in the month of Blade Runner.
The writer Ken Hollings takes the Voight Kampff test as he examines the ethical barriers between us and the machine.
"According to both the novel and its film adaptation, androids are committing a crime simply by not being human. And in the world of 2019, Blade Runner reveals, the punishment is enforced ‘retirement’ – or legal execution. This is the extent to which humanity holds itself responsible for its creations."
Producer: Mark Burman
Los Angeles, November 2019. Blade Runner's future is now ours. Ridley Scott's 1982 classic future film of replicants escaping to a retro-fitted Earth and meeting their end at the hands of the washed out, titular Blade Runner, Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, is adapted from Philip K Dick's equally classic 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
Both film and book are meditations on what it is to be human but we have been looking through the eyes of the film ever since it plunged us into its acid-rain, neon-coated, west-coast nightmare of flaming night skies, commercial ziggurats, flying cars and fake animals. Now its future is our present. We live in a world of mass species die off, environmental crisis, rapidly developing A.I., all powerful corporations and extreme divides between rich and poor.
Film and book have bled into our culture in many different ways and in this series of the Essay, we mark the year of Blade Runner, in the month of Blade Runner.
Frances Morgan, writer and researcher into electronic music, pierces the sound barrier of a film that defined the future not only in the way it looked but in the ways we heard tomorrow.
"The first thing I think of is the film’s sonic environment. The main character, the Blade Runner Rick Deckard, moves through the city, from its murky streets up to its corporate penthouses, against a constant backdrop of hissing rain, distant explosions, synthesized voices from billboard-sized screens, bleeping machines, hybrid pop music, multilingual chatter and the buzz of neon. Music ebbs and flows around him: deep drones swelling into gauzy synthetic strings. His apartment pulses with a low hum. Blade Runner is suffused, saturated with sound."
Producer: Mark Burman
Los Angeles, November 2019. Blade Runner's future is now ours. Ridley Scott's 1982 classic future film of replicants escaping to a retro-fitted Earth and meeting their end at the hands of the washed out, titular Blade Runner, Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, is adapted from Philip K Dick's equally classic 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
Both film and book are meditations on what it is to be human but we have been looking through the eyes of the film ever since it plunged us into its acid-rain, neon-coated, west-coast nightmare of flaming night skies, commercial ziggurats, flying cars and fake animals. Now its future is our present. We live in a world of mass species die off, environmental crisis, rapidly developing A.I., all powerful corporations and extreme divides between rich and poor. Just that neon umbrellas never caught on and flying cars are still a luxury.
Film and book have bled into our culture in many different ways and in this series of the Essay, we mark the year of Blade Runner, in the month of Blade Runner.
Five writers explore what it is to be human or a machine, the sonic reaches of the film, the contradictions of sex robots, the cinematic legacy and we begin with Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum, considering the filmic city of Blade Runner's Los Angeles and its bleed out beyond the screen into architecture and design.
"The film offers a deeply ambiguous spectacle. Blade Runner is a vision of a world in which mankind has blotted out the sun, and nature has gone extinct. We know that we are meant to be horrified. And yet at the same time it’s thrilling to look at, like taking in the view at midnight from a bar on the sixtieth floor of a Shanghai skyscraper, nursing a vodka martini in an iced glass."
Producer: Mark Burman
In the first of five personal takes on the Weimar Republic, historian Jochen Hung presents his view of the Weimar Republic from Berlin.
The annual Arts Over Borders festival reaches into rural and urban communities on both sides of the Irish border. Curated with a strong sense of place and extending across four counties – from Fermanagh to Donegal, Tyrone to Derry/Londonderry- the border itself looms large in the festival.
Recorded in front of live audiences at the 2019 Arts Over Borders festival in Enniskillen and Derry/Londonderry, five writers explore the theme of boundaries.
At the Royal Grammar School, Enniskillen, the author Philip Hoare transcends the elements and talks about being shaped and reshaped by the sea.
Producers: Ophelia Byrne & Cathy Moorehead
The annual Arts Over Borders festival reaches into rural and urban communities on both sides of the Irish border. Curated with a strong sense of place and extending across four counties – from Fermanagh to Donegal, Tyrone to Derry/Londonderry- the border itself looms large in the festival.
Recorded in front of live audiences at the 2019 Arts Over Borders festival in Enniskillen and Derry/Londonderry, five writers explore the theme of boundaries.
At Derry's Guildhall, the writer and journalist Ed Vulliamy talks about the musicians transgressing the perceived barriers between youth and age, from John Cale and Bob Dylan, to Leonard Cohen and Joan Baez.
Producers: Ophelia Byrne & Cathy Moorehead
The annual Arts Over Borders festival reaches into rural and urban communities on both sides of the Irish border. Curated with a strong sense of place and extending across four counties – from Fermanagh to Donegal, Tyrone to Derry/Londonderry- the border itself looms large in the festival.
Recorded in front of live audiences at the 2019 Arts Over Borders festival in Enniskillen and Derry/Londonderry, five writers explore the theme of boundaries.
At the Royal Grammar School, Enniskillen, the writer Wendy Erskine takes us through doorways as portals into other worlds in art, literature and life.
Producers: Ophelia Byrne & Cathy Moorehead
The annual Arts Over Borders festival reaches into rural and urban communities on both sides of the Irish border. Curated with a strong sense of place and extending across four counties – from Fermanagh to Donegal, Tyrone to Derry/Londonderry- the border itself looms large in the festival.
Recorded in front of live audiences at the 2019 Arts Over Borders festival in Enniskillen and Derry/Londonderry, five writers explore the theme of boundaries.
At the Guildhall in Derry/Londonderry, poet Stephen Sexton is prompted by a description of a traditional Tory Island wedding, to talk about the margins between language and image.
Producers: Ophelia Byrne & Cathy Moorehead
The annual Arts Over Borders festival reaches into rural and urban communities on both sides of the Irish border. Curated with a strong sense of place and extending across four counties – from Fermanagh to Donegal, Tyrone to Derry/Londonderry- the border itself looms large in the festival.
In this series of The Essay, recorded in front of live audiences at the 2019 Arts Over Borders festival in Enniskillen and Derry/Londonderry, five writers explore the theme of boundaries.
At the Royal Grammar School, Enniskillen, Irish writer and broadcaster Sinéad Gleeson talks about the ways in which pain, inequality and borders can separate us.
Producers: Ophelia Byrne & Cathy Moorehead
There’s a shadow creeping across the forest in the works of JRR Tolkien. Nature may be incorruptible but the creatures of the forest cannot withstand the relentless march of evil. Slowly but surely the songbirds are replaced by giant spiders, black squirrels and rampaging goblins. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is joined by Mark Atherton from Oxford University for a walk through Tolkien’s forest, uncovering the influence of Anglo-Saxon legends and Middle English poems in the creation of Middle Earth.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Lose yourself in a forest of fair maidens and knights with suspiciously shiny armour. This is a forest where the romantic couplings may be fantastical but the backdrop is meticulously drawn. Each leaf, each clump of moss is taken directly from nature. This is the mediaeval forest as reimagined by late Victorian aesthetes aghast at the grit and grime of industrialisation.
Eleanor Rosamund Baraclough is joined by Ingrid Hanson from Manchester University for a walk through this Pre-Raphaelite forest. Their spirit guide is William Morris, the writer and designer who helped create the forest in his works of fantasy fiction such as The Wood Beyond the World, beating a path to be followed by Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
As he enters a woodland, perfumer, Roja Dove can be overwhelmed. This legendary nose of the perfume industry can identify 800 different scents blindfolded. Place him in a forest and he can sense narratives of sex, birth, decay and death.
Roja joins Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough for a walk in the woods to discuss how the base notes of the forest scent inspire him. The foundation of damp moss and rotting wood is warm and comforting, but a change in the breeze can bring fresh inspiration to excite the senses, just the kind of effect Roja looks for when he formulates a new perfume.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Forests are the perfect place for outlaw artists to enact their vision. Just fourteen stops from Soho on the Central Line, Epping Forest provides a particularly convenient place to lose yourself and hide from worldly distractions.
Sculptor, Jacob Epstein used Epping as artistic inspiration and venue for innumerable affairs. But was he lost in the forest or hiding there? John Clare was incarcerated there in an asylum, a place where he lost his status as the peasant poet but found a new identity. First he believed himself to be Lord Byron, latterly he was William Shakespeare. Skip forward a hundred years and the forest continued to intrigue, sheltering the Punk collective, Crass from Big Bang London and providing a surreal playground for theatrical provocateur and forest pixie, Ken Campbell.
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is joined on a walk through the artistic hotspots of Epping Forest by Will Ashon, author of 'Strange Labyrinth', a cultural guidebook to the lungs of North-East London.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
The folk singer, Nancy Kerr joins Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough for a walk in the woods. Forests play a vital role in folk music, as a refuge for romantic outlaws, as a metaphor for freedom and as a space for sexual couplings, usually with the traditionally tragic ending.
Nancy explains how the early folk song collectors such as Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams found a vibrant folk vocabulary bristling with bushes and briars, stout oaks and wily willows. She understands just how powerfully symbolic trees and forests can be, composing her own songs of the woods and interpreting classic tales of sylvan sensuality.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Radio 3 presenter Kate Molleson celebrates a composer whose music is particularly important to her: the Frenchwoman Eliane Radigue, whose calm and long-form sense of perspective Kate finds inspirational.
Radio 3 presenter Andrew McGregor reflects on the powerful Lamentations of English composer Thomas Tallis and their special place in his life.
Radio 3 presenter Kathryn Tickell celebrates a composer whose music is particularly important to her: the Australian-American folksong fanatic Percy Grainger.
Radio 3 presenter Tom McKinney celebrates the birdsong-inspired music of the twentieth-century French composer Olivier Messiaen and its special place in his life.
Radio 3 presenter Penny Gore celebrates a composer particularly important to her: the Moravian, Leoš Janáček, whose music is shot through with the uncertainties of life.
Radio 3 presenter Petroc Trelawny celebrates a composer whose fascinating life story and music are particularly special to him: the Englishman Lennox Berkeley.
Radio 3 presenter John Toal the French composer Maurice Ravel, whose music had a special place in his life long before he discovered an unexpected connection.
Clemency Burton-Hill celebrates the Romanian composer George Enescu, whose philosophy of the profound importance of music in all areas of life has been a particular inspiration to her.
Radio 3 presenter and poet Ian McMillan celebrates the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose music has been particularly special to him ever since he first heard The Lark Ascending at the age of eight.
Radio 3 presenter Fiona Talkington celebrates the French composer Joseph Canteloube, whose famous Songs of the Auvergne have become particularly important to her during her experience of cancer.
The author Natasha Carthew on Rame Head Chapel, near Whitsand Bay, in south east Cornwall.
5/5 Natasha describes how she would write here in the wild as a child and how the chapel symbolised hope.
This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. Each writer has a passionate connection with the building featured, revealing how our long past and complex present have led to a built environment unlike anywhere else on the planet.
Image courtesy of Natasha Carthew
Producer: Clare Walker
The writer Bridget Collins takes us backstage to Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells.
4/5 Bridget reflects on repurposing old buildings and the links between church and theatre.
This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. Each writer has a passionate connection with the building featured, revealing how our long past and complex present have led to a built environment unlike anywhere else on the planet.
Producer: Clare Walker
Author James Rebanks, the Lake District shepherd, talks about Malcolm's place, Taigh na Trathad (The Beach House) in Uig on the Isle of Lewis.
3/5 James describes how the history and sense of community on Lewis has informed the buildings and that it is "not the ‘edge of the world’, but the centre of another that we have chosen not to see".
This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. Each writer has a passionate connection with the building featured, revealing how our long past and complex present have led to a built environment unlike anywhere else on the planet.
Image courtesy of Alistair MacCallum
Producer: Clare Walker
As part of Radio 3's Take Five week of young artists, the second of five dramatic monologues by young writers. Each writer was given a particular piece of music and asked to write a dramatic monologue in which the music becomes part of the soundtrack.
The Dead Dad Show by Annalisa Dinnella
A young would-be comedian has a strange encounter on the overnight train from London to Edinburgh.
James ..... Joseph Ayre
Music - Steve Reich: Six Marimbas
Directed by Marc Beeby
As part of Radio 3's Take Five week of young artists, this is the first of five dramatic monologues by young writers. Each writer was given a particular piece of music and asked to write a dramatic monologue in which the music becomes part of the soundtrack.
Dodo by Greer Ellison
An elderly woman finds herself trapped in a small aircraft heading for disaster.
Edna ..... Brid Brennan
Music - Nils Frahm Says
Directed by Marc Beeby
Novelist Beth Underdown on Rochdale Town Hall.
2/5 Beth describes how her family's personal history is tied up with the building and how Hitler reputedly admired it so much that he ordered it spared during the Second World War.
This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. Each writer has a passionate connection with the building featured, revealing how our long past and complex present have led to a built environment unlike anywhere else on the planet.
Producer: Clare Walker
Author Louise Welsh reflects on Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art.
1/5 Louise describes her memories of the building before it was ravaged by two fires.
This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. Each writer has a passionate connection with the building featured, revealing how our long past and complex present have led to a built environment unlike anywhere else on the planet.
Image courtesy of Alan McAteer
Producer: Clare Walker
A song about a Glaswegian tough guy begins this Essay from New Generation Thinker Alistair Fraser. Recorded with an audience at the York Festival of Ideas. To hear audience questions download the Essay as an episode of the BBC Arts&Ideas podcast.
The image of the hard man runs like an electric current through Glasgow's history. Unafraid, unabashed, with outlaw swagger, he stalks the pages of countless crime novels and TV dramas. The unpredictable tough guy, schooled in both fist and knife, a symbol of the city's industrial past. But what does being a hard man mean in the Glasgow of today, now call-centre capital of Europe? And what lessons can be drawn from his changing fates and fortunes to understand masculinity and violence elsewhere?
Alistair Fraser is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of Glasgow and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He has spent the last fifteen years studying youth gangs and street culture around the world, and is author of two academic books, Urban Legends: Gang Identity in the Post-Industrial City (2015, Oxford University Press), and Gangs & Crime: Critical Alternatives (2017, Sage). He makes regular contributions to public debate on gangs and youth violence, and has appeared on BBC Radio 3 and 4 on Thinking Allowed, More or Less, and Free Thinking.
Alistair Fraser in a Free Thinking Festival debate about gangs https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09w7qqg Alistair Fraser looks at Doing Nothing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09v66bh Audience questions of this Essay are found here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nrvk3/episodes/downloads
Producer; Jacqueline Smith
What does wearing a suit say? New Generation Thinker Sarah Goldsmith's Essay introduces an audience at York Festival of Ideas to Beau Brummel and others who have understood the mixed messages of suits through time.
England football coach Gareth Southgate's pitch-side waistcoats and 007's exquisite collection of Tom Ford suits all make one thing clear: sweatpants are out and the formal man's suit, along with its tailor, has triumphantly returned. From the colourful flamboyances of the eighteenth century to the dandy dictates of Beau Brummell and into the inky black 'Great Renunciation' of the nineteenth century, join Sarah Goldsmith for a whirlwind tour of the origins of the most ubiquitous, enduring item of male sartorial fashion and the 'second skin' of the male body, the three-piece suit.
Sarah Goldsmith is a historian of masculinity, the body and travel. She is a Leverhulme Research Fellow at the University of Leicester, an AHRC/BBC 2018 New Generation Thinker and a life-long rugby fan. Her first book, Masculinity and Danger on the Eighteenth-Century Grand Tour, is being published in 2019.
Sarah Goldsmith on the C18 craze for weightlifting https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00040wg Sarah Golsmith discusses the body past and present on Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7my7k
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
Queerness might not be the most obvious association with soldiering, but New Generation Thinker Tom Smith's Essay argues that although the East German army had a reputation for unbending masculinity, it's surprising how central queerness was to the enterprise. Recorded with an audience at the York Festival of Ideas.
Brutality along the Berlin Wall, monumental Soviet-style parades, rows of saluting soldiers: these are the familiar images of the East German military. Army training promoted toughness, endurance and self-control and forced its soldiers into itchy, shapeless uniforms. Delve deeper, though, and you find countless examples of the army’s fascination with homosexuality. Even more unexpectedly, gay and bisexual soldiers found ways of expressing desires and intimacy. LGBT people have long faced discrimination and violence in arenas aimed at the promotion of traditional masculinity, but look closely and we discover that queerness has not always been as marginalised as we’d think. What can East Germany teach us about masculinity in the twenty-first century?
Tom Smith is Lecturer in German at the University of St Andrews researching gender and sexuality in German culture and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme that selects 10 academics each year to turn their research into radio. He has published on sexuality and masculinity in literature, film and television since the 1960s. His book on masculinity in the East German army is out in 2020. His current project explores the emotional worlds of Berlin’s music scene today.
Meet the 2019 New Generation Thinkers including Tom Smith https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004dsv
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
Lockdown brought beards and the question of to shave or not to shave to the fore. New Generation Thinker Alun Withey looks at what made 18th-century men shave off centuries of manly growth. Recorded before an audience at the York Festival of Ideas. You can hear audience questions from the event as an episode of the BBC Arts&Ideas podcast.
To be clean-shaven was the mark of a C18 gentleman, beard-wearing marked out the rough rustic. For the first time, men were beginning to shave themselves instead of visiting the barber, and a whole new market emerged to cater for rising demand in all sorts of shaving products - soaps, pastes and powders. But the way these were promoted suggests there was confusion over exactly what the ideal man should be. On the one hand, razor makers appealed to masculine characteristics like hardness, control and temper in their advertisements whilst perfumers and other manufacturers of shaving soaps, stressed softness, ease and luxury.
So enter the world of Georgian personal grooming to discover the 18th-century's inner man.
Alun Withey lectures in the Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter and is a Wellcome Research Fellow and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He has edited an essay collection on the history of facial hair (Palgrave), curated a photographic exhibition of Victorian beards in the Florence Nightingale Museum in London and has written for BBC History Magazine and History Today. He blogs at dralun.wordpress.com
Alun Withey on C16 medical history https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p022kyp1 Alun Withey visits Bamburgh Castle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p036l4q0 Alun Withey's article about the C19th attitude towards beards https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/31SKHd61RYxJBryrQ4NfmWJ/nine-reasons-victorians-thought-men-were-better-with-beards
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
Napoleon inspired much fiction and non-fiction. New Generation Thinker Emma Butcher looks at the publishing phenomenon that was the traumatised Napoleonic Redcoat - Recorded before an audience at the York Festival of Ideas.
The Napoleonic Wars, like all wars, had their celebrities. Chief among them, Wellington and Napoleon, whose petty rivalry and military bravado ensured their status as household names long after Waterloo. But these wars also saw the rise of a new genre of personal and sentimental war literature which took the public by storm. The writers were foot soldiers rather than officers, infantrymen like the Reverend George Gleig and John Malcolm. Both fought in some of the most decisive battles on the Continent but it is their written accounts of their daily lives, of the true nature of war, its personal costs and the terrors endured, which ensured their best-selling status. This is the story of the rise and rise of the military memoir, with foot soldier as hero, and the way his war stories were lapped up with horrified glee by the armchair readers back home, transforming the image of soldiering.
Emma Butcher is a Leverhulme Early Career Researcher at the University of Leicester and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to select academics who can turn their research into radio. She is currently writing her second book, Children in the Age of Modern War, has written for the BBC History Magazine and made Radio 3 programmes on the Brontës, child soldiers, and children in art.
Emma Butcher on Kids with Guns https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09vz5lp Emma Butcher on Branwell Bronte https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05770my
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
As part of Radio 3's Take Five week of young artists, the last of five dramatic monologues by young writers. Each writer was given a particular piece of music and asked to write a dramatic monologue in which the music becomes part of the soundtrack.
Le Festival de Men by Nicole Lecky
A young woman looks for love at the first-ever Festival de Men.
Candice ..... Debbie Korley
Music - George Gershwin: Cuban Overture
Directed by Marc Beeby
The fourth of five dramatic monologues by young writers. Each writer was given a particular piece of music and asked to write a dramatic monologue in which the music becomes part of the soundtrack. Part of Radio 3's Take Five week of young artists.
Every Night by Steve Lawrence
A disturbed man with compulsive cravings finds unexpected solace when he meets a young woman.
The Man ..... Joe Sims
Music - Morten Lauridsen: O Magnum Mysterium
Directed by Marc Beeby
The third of five dramatic monologues by young writers. Each writer was given a particular piece of music and asked to write a dramatic monologue in which the music becomes part of the soundtrack. Part of Radio 3's Take Five week of young artists.
Reluctant Spirit by Athena Stevens
A young girl with a disability describes her relationship with her mother.
The Girl ..... Ella Glendining
Music - Arvo Pärt: Für Alina
Directed by Marc Beeby
Daniel Hahn considers language in the relationship between Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday, and how two meeting cultures communicate
In this series of Essays, recorded in front of an audience at the 2019 Hay Festival, five writers respond to the themes of Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’. Often described as the first novel, it's a story which still resonates, three hundred years after it was written, but also preserves the attitudes of its time. Fiona Stafford, Horatio Clare, Alex Wheatle, Alys Conran and Daniel Hahn reflect on the novel as a tale of exotic adventure, a study of isolation and a fantasy of colonial encounter.
Alys Conran reflects on the theme of isolation in Robinson Crusoe and the act of reading it as a novelist
In this series of Essays, recorded in front of an audience at the 2019 Hay Festival, five writers respond to the themes of Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’. Often described as the first novel, it's a story which still resonates, three hundred years after it was written, but also preserves the attitudes of its time. Fiona Stafford, Horatio Clare, Alex Wheatle, Alys Conran and Daniel Hahn reflect on the novel as a tale of exotic adventure, a study of isolation and a fantasy of colonial encounter.
Having enjoyed it as an eight-year-old boy, Alex Wheatle re-reads Robinson Crusoe and reflects on its themes of imperialism and slavery.
In this series of Essays, recorded in front of an audience at the 2019 Hay Festival, five writers respond to the themes of Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’. Often described as the first novel, it's a story which still resonates, three hundred years after it was written, but also preserves the attitudes of its time. Fiona Stafford, Horatio Clare, Alex Wheatle, Alys Conran and Daniel Hahn reflect on the novel as a tale of exotic adventure, a study of isolation and a fantasy of colonial encounter.
Horatio Clare explores the castaway myth, looking at what happens to the soul and mind in the great spaces and on actual desert islands.
In this series of Essays, recorded in front of an audience at the 2019 Hay Festival, five writers respond to the themes of Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’. Often described as the first novel, it's a story which still resonates, three hundred years after it was written, but also preserves the attitudes of its time. Fiona Stafford, Horatio Clare, Alex Wheatle, Alys Conran and Daniel Hahn reflect on the novel as a tale of exotic adventure, a study of isolation and a fantasy of colonial encounter.
Fiona Stafford explores ‘The Strange, Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe’, looking at what Crusoe the narrator was most surprised by, and the stranger aspects of the book
In this series of Essays, recorded in front of an audience at the 2019 Hay Festival, five writers respond to the themes of Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’. Often described as the first novel, it's a story which still resonates, three hundred years after it was written, but also preserves the attitudes of its time. Fiona Stafford, Horatio Clare, Alex Wheatle, Alys Conran and Daniel Hahn reflect on the novel as a tale of exotic adventure, a study of isolation and a fantasy of colonial encounter.
Poet and wild swimmer Elizabeth-Jane Burnett joins Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough for an inspirational dip in the chilly River Avon.
Elizabeth-Jane's latest book, The Grassling, is a nature memoir about her father, his illness and her attempts to reconnect with the fields and rivers that sustained and moulded his family for generations. Her poetry collection Swims describes a series of wild swims around Britain, connecting them to the environmental and political issues of the day.
In Worcestershire she enjoys her first taste of the River Avon, braving the cold but enjoying the sand martins, the skylarks and a low flying heron which might just find itself immortalised in Elizabeth-Jane's next poetry collection.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Stand knee-deep in a river and consider the energy flow. Water presses against you, light reflects upon the surface. What else can you feel? Helen Czerski of University College London views the Thames with the eyes of a physicist. At low tide she takes Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough for a wade through the surprisingly clean waters separating Brentford from Kew Gardens.
How would the river look if embankments were removed and channels breached? Why do islands form and persist? Where does each drop of Thames water come from? Why can the river flow east and west at the same time?
You may never view the Thames in quite the same way again.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
For Feargal Sharkey the perfect cast is a lifelong obsession. It's the moment when man and river exist in perfect harmony. It's a passion he shares with generations of artists before him on the chalk streams of Hertfordshire. Dame Juliana Berners, Prioress of St Mary of Sopwell wrote one of the earliest books on the etiquette of hunting, hawking and fishing in the 14th century. Her work influenced Izaak Walton who opens The Compleat Angler with a vivid description of a walk from Tottenham to the waters that Feargal fishes today.
Growing up in Derry with the mountains and trout-rich rivers of Donegal on his doorstep, Feargal fished from childhood, but when the punk fame of The Undertones reached its peak he found himself in north London with only the Grand Union Canal for company. Discovering the chalk streams on the edge of the city brought fishing back into his life and since then he's dedicated himself to the preservation of these waters. England contains most of the world's chalk streams, perfect habitat for trout, waterfowl, otter and water vole, but abstraction for drinking water and pollution from farming and industry has pushed many of these rivers to the edge of destruction.
Feargal shares his determination to save the chalk streams with Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and instructs her in the Zen art of fly fishing.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
On the banks of the River Medway, Nicola White is in search of artistic inspiration. Driftwood, perhaps? A Victorian poison bottle or a Roman pot? In the second of a series of Essays on British rivers Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough joins the mudlark artist as she combs through mud and shingle.
The Medway rises in the South Downs and passes through sleepy Maidstone but it starts to get really interesting as it broadens out into mudflats, industry and islands. It's here that Kentish history, from the 43AD Roman invasion of Britain through the peaks and troughs of the Royal Navy's Chatham Dockyards to the preparations for Nazi invasion, can be read from the shore.
Nicola collects the stories she finds there- military dog-tags, messages in bottles- and turns them into art inspired by the naïve abstraction of 20th-century St. Ives.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Gaelic songs and stories burst with mythical water creatures, from seductive kelpies and selkies to woeful waterfall banshees. In the first of five Essays from the banks of British rivers, folk singer Julie Fowlis guides Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough through a watery Highland underworld.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde,
Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.'
Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers...
'Dear Dante,
Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?'
In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask.
Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat?
Producer: Conor Garrett
'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde,
Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.'
Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers...
'Dear Dante,
Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?'
In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask.
Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat?
Producer: Conor Garrett
'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde,
Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.'
Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers...
'Dear Dante,
Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?'
In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask.
Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat?
Producer: Conor Garrett
'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde,
Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.'
Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers...
'Dear Dante,
Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?'
In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask.
Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat?
Producer: Conor Garrett
'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde,
Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.'
Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers...
'Dear Dante,
Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?'
In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask.
Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat?
Producer: Conor Garrett
You don't have to be religious to believe that, as the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, "all human beings have the right to be free and treated equally." However, drawing on a wide range of examples including Shakespeare's Richard III to Disney's Jiminy Cricket, New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel argues that the UN's emphasis on "reason and conscience" as the drivers of liberty and equality make the modern conception of human rights more religious, and less liberal, than both secular proponents and conservative critics have supposed.
Dafydd Mills Daniel lectures on theology and ethics at the University of Oxford, and researches the history and development of theories of conscience.
The Essay was recorded at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead and - like all the New Generation Thinker Essays - you can hear a longer version with audience questions as a BBC Arts&Ideas podcast. You can also see Dafydd in a National Geographic TV show talking about the last Sin Eater. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvW7pxOrssU
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 radio.
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
You are a liberal who opposes art being banned. But would a movie that calls for you to be killed change your view of censorship? This was the quandary facing Salman Rushdie when filmmakers in Pakistan produced a James Bond-style action thriller in which a trio of Islamist guerrillas are inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa to track down and kill the author of The Satanic Verses. In the year of the 30th anniversary of the fatwa against the novelist from Iranian clerics, film historian Dr Iain Robert Smith explores what this largely-forgotten episode from the Rushdie affair can tell us about current debates on freedom of expression.
Iain Robert Smith researches the impact of globalisation on popular films made around the world. He teaches at King’s College, London.
The Essay was recorded at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead.
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 radio.
Producer: Fiona McLean
Was George Orwell’s wife his forgotten collaborator on one of the most famous books in the world? Lisa Mullen takes a new look at Animal Farm from the perspective of the smart and resourceful Eileen Blair – and uncovers a hidden story about sex, fertility, and the politics of women’s work. Why are some contributions less equal than others?
Lisa Mullen is Steven Isenberg Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College, University of Oxford and the author of Mid-century gothic: uncanny objects in British literature and culture after the Second World War.
Her Essay is recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of the Free Thinking Festival and a longer version with audience questions is available as a BBC Arts&Ideas podcast.
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.
Production Team:- Producer: Fiona McLean Editor: Robyn Read Production Coordinator: Juliette Harvey .
Commercial surrogacy – the practice of paying another woman to carry a pregnancy to term – has been criticised for being exploitative, particularly when poorer women are recruited. Even if these women were paid more, and the exploitation element were reduced, would unease remain about “renting out” your body in this way? This essay from New Generation Thinker Gulzaar Barn will explore what, if anything, is different about the buying and selling of bodily services from other forms of trade. Should the body should be taken off the market?
Gulzaar Barn taught philosophy at the University of Birmingham and is now researching at King’s College, London in the Dickson Poon School of Law. The Essay was recorded at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead and a longer version with audience questions is available as a BBC Arts&Ideas podcast.
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 radio.
Producer: Zahid Warley
Have you ever been somewhere you shouldn't? In this essay, New Generation Thinker Ben Anderson creeps around, and explains how trespassers in the early-twentieth century helped create new attitudes to nature by stepping off the path.
Descriptions of late-nineteenth century trespass and rock-climbing show how different experiences of nature led to fights with landowners and gamekeepers for the rights of urban people. People going off-piste also led to efforts to expose environmental inequalities in the Alps, and calls for the protection of wilderness as a playground for hard men. At a time of ever increasing awareness of the environment, walk your thoughts around how our own, personal experience of nature defines what we come to value, and what we might fight to protect, alter or ‘improve’.
Ben Anderson lectures in twentieth century history at Keele University. The Essay was recorded at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead and - like all the Essays this week - a longer version including audience questions is available as an Arts& Ideas podcast.
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 radio.
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
Daisy Black looks at religious imagery, food, anti-Semitism and product placement in medieval mystery plays. Eaten by characters, dotted around the stage as saliva-prompting props, or nibbled by audiences - a medieval religious drama is glutted with food but Christianity’s vision of God as spiritual nutrition could provoke horror and fear as well as hunger. We'll hear about some of the gristly, crunchy medieval episodes of culinary performance as the Essay investigates the relationship between faith and food. In one play, sacramental bread is attacked in a kitchen, drawing disturbing parallels between the Eucharist and cannibalism.
Daisy Black lectures in English at the University of Wolverhampton and performs as a storyteller and freelance theatre director. Her essay was recorded at this year's Free Thinking Festival with an audience at Sage Gateshead.
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 radio.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Des Fitzgerald tracks the relationship between the modern city and its green environs. Drawing together psychological research with urban history and literature it asks: what would change, psychologically, socially, emotionally, if we covered the concrete and brickwork of our towns and cities with vines, plants and vertical gardens? A city is not a park but should it be?
Des Fitzgerald is a sociologist at Cardiff University who is researching health, illness and city living. The Essay was recorded at the Free Thinking Festival with an audience at Sage Gateshead.
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 radio.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
Comedian and author Viv Groskop explores five forgotten feminist futures; from the book that predicted the internet, to the world where men have been wiped out in a plague.
Episode 5/5: Woman on the Edge of Time, by Marge Piercy; a 1970s counter-culture agrarian utopia with a clear message; utopia does not have to be in the future, it can be now.
Comedian and author Viv Groskop explores five forgotten feminist futures.
Episode 4/5: The Female Man, by Joanna Russ, which tells four versions of the same woman, a complex narrative which prefigures many of the sci-fi tropes of 1970s and 1980s cinema.
Comedian and author Viv Groskop explores five forgotten feminist futures; from the book that predicted the internet to the world where men have been wiped out in a gender-specific plague.
Episode 3/5: Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The story of three gentleman explorers, who get purposefully lost on an expedition in the hope of stumbling across an all-women tribe.
Comedian and author Viv Groskop explores five forgotten feminist futures.
Episode 2/5: Mizora: A Prophecy, the 19th-century narrative written by author Mary E Bradley, who didn’t want her husband to find out that she was writing about a world without men.
Comedian and author Viv Groskop explores five forgotten feminist futures; from the book that predicted the internet, to the world where men have been wiped out in a gender-specific plague.
Episode 1/5: Three Hundred Years Hence, by Mary Griffith, often described as the first utopian novel written by a woman, fifty years before the first female suffrage amendment.
Sarah Churchwell celebrates various leading men of the silver screen from the 1930s and 1940s.
She says, "the truth is, I would have done five essays on Cary Grant, but my producer wouldn't let me... Grant embodied the unimaginable." He was also excellent at romantic comedy and drama, and this is now examined. Cherished even.
Producer: Duncan Minshull
Sarah Churchwell celebrates various leading men of the silver screen, from the 1930s and 1940s.
Joel McCrea starred in westerns and crime capers and refused some movies if the characters did not possess moral fibre. So he turned down The Postman Always Rings Twice with Lana Turner. He said he wanted to be the regular guy who 'rode off into the sunset'.
But was this his real appeal?
Producer: Duncan Minshull
Sarah Churchwell celebrates various leading men of the silver screen, from the 1930s and 1940s.
Charles Boyer played killers and gigolos, conmen and psychopaths. He was good at romantic comedy and his Frenchness made him debonair and suave. But it was the voice that was the giveaway - 'deep and purring, with a heavy French accent'. It encouraged this writer's early penchant for escapism.
Producer: Duncan Minshull
Sarah Churchwell celebrates various leading men of the silver screen from the 1930s and 1940s.
Frederic March had an amazing range, playing a lot of different types, and he should be admired for this. Off set, however, he comes under a different sort of scrutiny - "everything was harder in real life than on the effortless silver screen."
Reader: Duncan Minshull
Sarah Churchwell celebrates various leading men of the silver screen, from the 1930s and 1940s:
First off is Clark Gable and Gone with the Wind of course. And countless other films where this classic star could exercise his physical presence. And, according to the writer, his appeal lay as an 'object fought over by women'.
Is this his only talent?
Producer: Duncan Minshull
Writer and broadcaster AL Kennedy concludes her exploration of voice. Today, make some noise before it's too late.
Written and read by AL Kennedy. Producer: Justine Willett
Writer and broadcaster AL Kennedy continues her exploration of voice. Today, she compares the soothing radio voices of her childhood with the angry voices of today's media.
Written and read by AL Kennedy. Producer: Justine Willett
Acclaimed writer AL Kennedy continues her exploration of voice. Today, she looks at the voice on the page - and the importance of telling our stories.
Written and read by AL Kennedy. Producer: Justine Willett
Acclaimed writer and broadcaster AL Kennedy continues her exploration of voice. Today, she looks at the importance of conversation and of being heard.
Written and read by AL Kennedy. Producer: Justine Willett
Using her own voice recordings, writer AL Kennedy explores the power of voice and what it can say about us.
Written and read by AL Kennedy. Producer: Justine Willett
Andrew Martin's five essays that muse on the county of his birth and upbringing:
Sitting on a bench in Scarborough station, he recalls the Yorkshire coast of his youth. This takes in Whitby and Bram Stoker. Robin Hood Bay and the roofs of its houses. Filey and its rock-pools.
And Hull.
Producer: Duncan Minshull
Andrew Martin's five essays that muse on the county of his birth and upbringing.
He thinks he's best able to evoke a Yorkshire steeped in the past, but what about the future. Yorkshire independence? Its young people? The world of retail? There is much to consider.
Producer: Duncan Minshull
Andrew Martin's five essays that muse on the county of his birth and upbringing:
This time, he ponders questions of class in God's Own County. "My dad was one of the men who went to work in suits, being a clerk on British Rail. He got on with the men in overalls, but he tried to stop me speaking like them." The author has enjoyed class mobility, and after recollections of his upbringing, he gets to hear from a friend about the 'County Set'.
Producer: Duncan Minshull
Andrew Martin's five essays that muse on the county of his birth and upbringing:
This time, Andrew ponders the age-old question to do with Yorkshire and Lancashire rivalries - who comes out on top? Time to delve deep into each region's culture to come up with an explanation. But surely this author is biased?
Producer: Duncan Minshull
Andrew Martin's five essays that muse on the county of his birth and upbringing:
To begin, he is getting up there by train from London, thinking about his 'Tyke' identity. Also, who are the exemplars of God's Own County? - it's time to name some names.
Then, before long, he arrives in York...
Producer: Duncan Minshull
1819 was a stunningly fertile year for John Keats, when he wrote five of the greatest odes in the English language and actually introduced words and phrases never heard before - "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.....", "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty....." . "O for a beaker full of the warm South....."
Five leading contemporary poets each celebrate a single ode.
- Paul Batchelor on Ode to Psyche
Keats wrote "Ode to Psyche" in spring of 1819 and it was the first of his great odes in that year, , which include "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale".
Poet Paul Batchelor explores what is perhaps the least familiar of the great 1819 odes for contemporary readers.
Producer: Beaty Rubens
1819 was a stunningly fertile year for John Keats, when he wrote five of the greatest odes in the English language and actually introduced words and phrases never heard before - "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.....", "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty....." "O for a beaker full of the warm South....."
Five leading contemporary poets each celebrate a single ode.
- Sasha Dugdale on Ode to a Nightingale
Producer; Beaty Rubens
In 1819, John Keats wrote five of the greatest odes in the English language. Five leading contemporary poets each celebrate a single ode.
- Sean O'Brien on Ode on Melancholy
1819 was a stunningly fertile year for John Keats, when he wrote five of the greatest odes in the English language and actually introduced words and phrases never heard before - "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.....", "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty....."
The multiple award-winning poet Sean O'Brien explores the depth and meaning of Ode on Melancholy, both uncovering Keats' mastery of the language and sharing how important the poem has been to him personally since the loss of fellow-poet and friend Michael Donaghy, who used to recite the ode by heart.
Producer : Beaty Rubens
1819 was a stunningly fertile year for John Keats, when he wrote five of the greatest and most frequently anthologised odes in the English language, fresh-minting phrases now in common use , such as "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.....","Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty....." and "O, for a beaker full of the warm South....."
All this week, leading contemporary poets each celebrate a single ode, explaining what it means to them.
From her home in rural Devon, Alice Oswald brings together her unique blend of poetic sensibility, classical scholarship and personal impressions as she explores Keats' great poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn.
Classically educated poet and former gardener Alice Oswald has won many awards and is commonly considered to be amongst the greatest poets writing in English today.
Producer: Beaty Rubens
1819 was a stunningly fertile year for John Keats, when he wrote five of the greatest odes in the English language and actually introduced words and phrases never heard before - "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.....", "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty....." . Five leading contemporary poets each celebrate a single ode.
- Frances Leviston celebrates perhaps Keats' best-loved and most frequently anthologised poem, Ode to Autumn, exploring both its depiction of the bounty of autumn and its forebodings of death.
Producer : Beaty Rubens
Clive Anderson has always been fascinated by Harold Godwinson whose life and reign came to a bloody end at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, which a thousand years on is still the most famous date in English history. In his humorous look at King Harold, he wonders why Shakespeare never chose to write a play about his life - which has all the elements of a gripping historical drama, and a great tragedy. Producer: Sarah Taylor
Stephen Baxter creates a vivid portrait of Edward the Confessor. By any standards, Edward the Confessor lived a remarkable life, and left a still more remarkable legacy. He was a central figure in a period of turbulent politics, characterised by factional intrigue, rebellion, invasion and conquest. He personally experienced dramatic reversals in fortune, spending 25 years in exile before reigning as king of England for almost as long, through moments of periods triumph and humiliation. His posthumous life was similarly eventful . His death triggered the sequence of events that led to the Norman conquest; and his place of burial, Westminster Abbey, became the focal point of a cult which eventually made Edward the patron saint of the English monarchy, and the abbey a national treasure. Producer: Sarah Taylor
Aethelred's name is a combination of the Old English word aethel, meaning 'noble, excellent', and raed, meaning 'advice, counsel'. Simon Keynes probes the life of this Anglo-Saxon monarch who ruled over one of the most turbulent times of English history. Producer: Sarah Taylor
The return of the major series which rediscovers the Anglo-Saxons through vivid portraits of thirty individuals - women as well as men, famous we well as humble - written and presented by leading historians, archaeologists and enthusiasts in the field. Starting at the lonely grave of an anonymous smith buried in 7th century rural Lincolnshire, Leslie Webster vividly recreates the life of the smith and his ambivalent status in Anglo-Saxon society. Drawing on archaeology and written sources such as Beowulf and Aelfric's Colloquy, she reflects on the practical role of the blacksmith in making everyday tools and weapons, and the legendary celebrity of a handful of goldsmiths, who created magnificent works of art such as the Alfred Jewel, which can still be seen in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford today. Producer Beaty Rubens.
Michael Wood on Alfred the Great, King of Wessex and king of the Anglo-Saxons. Michael Wood chronicles Alfred's achievements: his writings; his reflections on kingship; his military skill; his rejuvenation of education and his legal expertise. Here are Alfred's own words about kingship. 'What I set out to do was to virtuously and justly administer the authority given to me. And I wanted to do it - so my talents and capacity might be remembered. But every natural gift in us soon withers if it is not ruled by wisdom. Without wisdom no talent can be fully realised: for to do something unwisely can hardly be accounted a skill. To be brief, I may say that it has always been my wish to live honourably, and after my death to leave to my descendents my memory in good works.' Producer: Sarah Taylor.
Anglo-Saxon scholar and guide at Durham Cathedral where Bede is buried, Lilian Groves explores the life and times of the saint widely regarded as one of the greatest theological scholars who gave to the world 'The Ecclesiastical History of the English People' and marvels at the thousands of visitors from around the world who still come to worship at his tomb. In his lifetime, Bede lived in Northumbria - the edge of the known world. He never left the confines of his monastery yet he legacy is universal. Contributors include Nobel prize-winner Seamus Heaney on the Beowulf bard, the departing Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on the first Archbishop of Canterbury, St Augustine; writer David Almond on the oldest surviving English poet, Caedmon; Michael Wood on King Alfred; Martin Carver on Raedwald; Richard Gameson on Eadfrith the Scribe; Helena Hamerow on the peasant-farmer; Geoffrey Robertson QC on the law-makers. Producer: Mohini Patel.
Another chance to hear an Essay by the Nobel prize-winner the late Seamus Heaney, recorded before he died in 2013. This is his portrait of the great Beowulf bard and of the court poet in general - known as the "scop" in old English - a man skilled in song and the pure art of story telling. Producer: Beaty Rubens
Most of these Anglo-Saxon Portraits are of named individuals, and Eadfrith, the scribe who wrote and ornamented the magnificent Lindisfarne Gospel in around 700, is no exception. But Richard Gameson's vivid and detailed account of Eadfrith is also a fascinating survey of the many unnamed scribes from the Anglo-Saxon period. A leading expert from the University of Durham on the history of the book, Richard Gameson's vivid Portrait of Eadfrith is punctuated by many extraordinary facts and figures: Eadfrith's total line-length, for example, in the Lindisfarne Gospels, was nearly two kilometres and necessitated the slaughter of some 130 calves! From the writing to the binding, ornamental covering and later copying, this account brings to life each of the essential processes in creating a book in Anglo-Saxon times. It concludes that while the ostentatious ornatmentation suggests that the Anglo-Saxons did judge a book by its cover, the legacy of the scribes goes far beyond this. For, as Richard Gameson states: "Our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon history and literature relies almost entirely on the work of Anglo-Saxon scribes. Without scribes we would have no Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, no Beowulf, no copies of Bede's great Ecclesiastical History." Producer: Beaty Rubens.
Historian Tony Morris explores the life of Cuthbert, the popular saint of the Northeast, and his continuing appeal today, both on and far beyond his home, the island of Lindisfarne.
Martin Carver tells the sensational story of the unearthing of Britain's richest ever grave, at Sutton Hoo, in spring 1939. He goes on to describe the role of his own team from the University of York in the second wave of excavations there, and vividly recreates the life, death and burial of its probable inhabitant, King Raedwald. With a fabulous eye for detail, he describes some of the 263 objects of gold, silver, bronze, iron, gems, leather, wood, textiles, feather and fur, laid out in a wooden chamber at the centre of a buried ship. And he uses these to recreate the life and turbulent times of this early Anglo-Saxon king and his clever, devoted wife. Producer: Beaty Rubens.
'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?'
In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything.
'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?'
As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowd funding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932?
In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists.
Producer - Mark McCleary for BBC Northern Ireland
'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?'
In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything.
'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?'
As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowdfunding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932?
In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists.
Producer - Mark McCleary for BBC Northern Ireland
'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?'
In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything.
'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?'
As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowd funding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932?
In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists.
Producer - Mark McCleary for BBC Northern Ireland
'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?'
In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything.
'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?'
As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowd funding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932?
In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists.
Producer - Mark McCleary for BBC Northern Ireland
'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?'
In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything.
'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?'
As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowd funding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932?
In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists.
Producer - Mark McCleary for BBC Northern Ireland
The final run of Essays in the long-running series which explores the impact of the First World War on individual artists through the prism of a single great work of art.
4.Alex Walton recalls the Australian artist, Isobel - "Iso" - Rae, who spent the war in the Etaples art colony in the South of France, but whose work, as a female artist, has long been overlooked.
Born in Australia in 1860 and trained at Melbourne's National Gallery of Victoria Art School, Rae travelled to France in 1887 and spent most of the rest of her life there. A longstanding member of the Étaples art colony, Rae lived in the area from the 1890s until the 1930s, painting the world she witnessed at Etaples Army Base Camp and exhibiting her work in London and Paris.
She was one of only two female Australian artists to live and paint in France during the war, but neither were included in their country's first group of official war artists.
Alex Walton, a curator at the Imperial War Museum, revisits her life and re-evaluates her largely forgotten work for a contemporary audience.
Producer: Beaty Rubens
The final run of Essays in the long-running series which explores the impact of the First World War on individual artists through the prism of a single great work of art.
3.Jane Potter on The Forbidden Zone, a depiction of nursing life at the Front by Mary Borden.
Mary Borden was an Anglo-American novelist who served for four years as a nurse in a military hospital at the Front.
Jane Potter celebrates a work which, like those of Sassoon, Graves, and Remarque, vividly depicts the horror of the Trenches and yet is far less well known.
Producer; Beaty Rubens.
The final run of Essays in the long-running series which explores the impact of the First World War on individual artists through the prism of a single great work of art.
2.Janet Montefiore on Rudyard Kipling's 1922 collection, Epitaphs
On 27 September 1915, 8,000 out of the 10,000 British troops who took part in the disastrous Battle of Loos were killed or wounded. One of these, 2nd Lieutenant John Kipling, eighteen years old, the son of Rudyard Kipling, was reported ‘missing believed killed.’ His body was never found.
Four years later, Rudyard Kipling published his ‘Epitaphs of the War 1914-1918’: thirty-one brief poems giving voice to those who died in the Great War: soldiers, airmen, nurses, non-combatants, Canadians, Indians, sailors, politicians, cowards and heroes.
These days, Kipling is often criticised for his imperialist views on "the white man's burden", but in this Essay, Kipling scholar, Janet Montefiore uncovers a more sympathetic figure. She tells the story behind a poignant collection of poems which express Kipling's personal grief whilst giving voice to a wider sense of outrage about the victims of the war, including the famously succinct condemnation : If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.
Producer: Beaty Rubens
The final run of Essays in the long-running series which explores the impact of the First World War on individual artists through the prism of a single great work of art.
1.Imaobong Umoren tells the story behind W.E.B. Dubois' seminal editorial, Returning Soldiers, which laid the early foundations of the Black Lives Matter campaign.
Born in 1868 in Massachusetts, Du Bois was raised by a single mother who descended from African, English and Dutch ancestors. Growing up in the racially mixed town of Great Barrington, Du Bois attended public school alongside both white and black pupils and, at an early age, was singled out for his intellect. He was to grow up to become one of the leading scholars and activists of the twentieth century on what was then termed the ‘Negro Problem’.
Published in The Crisis, the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Returning Soldiers’, was based on the experiences that Du Bois had during his three-month visit to France from December 1918 to March 1919. Imaobong tells the story behind its writing and uncovers its continuing importance in today's Black Lives Matter campaign.
Dr Imaobong D Umoren is Assistant Professor of International History of Gender at London School of Economics and Political Science.
Poet Simon Armitage talks about reading Ted Hughes as a child and, later, finding an unexpected in tenderness the poet's work. This essay includes a close reading of Hughes's poem Full Moon and Little Frieda.
Ted Hughes died in 2018, and we are still arguing about his legacy. In a new series of the Radio 3 Essay, leading poets bring a sharp eye to the poems themselves, reminding us why Hughes is regarded as one of the 20th-century's greatest writers, and exploring how the works match up to, inform and contradict what we know of the man.
Recorded before a live audience at the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in Hull in 2018.
Written and read by Simon Armitage. Produced by Simon Richardson.
Poet Zaffar Kunial explores Ted Hughes's personal obsession with dates and anniversaries.
Ted Hughes died in 1998, and we are still arguing about his legacy. In a new series of the Radio 3 Essay, leading poets bring a sharp eye to the poems themselves, reminding us why Hughes is regarded as one of the 20th-century's greatest writers, and exploring how the works match up to, inform and contradict what we know of the man.
Recorded at the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in Hull in 2018.
Written and read by Zaffar Kunial. Produced by Simon Richardson.
Poet Karen McCarthy Woolf on finding solace in Hughes's work during a troubled childhood. To her his books were more a mood: a dark and brooding presence but one that resonated. That subconscious memory left a deep and metaphorical imprint that has infused her own work in its relationships with landscape, loss and grief.
Ted Hughes died in 1998, and we are still arguing about his legacy. In this series of the Radio 3 Essay, leading poets bring a sharp eye to the poems themselves, reminding us why Hughes is regarded as one of the 20th-century's greatest writers, and exploring how the works match up to, inform and contradict what we know of the man.
Recorded before a live audience at the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in Hull in 2018.
Written and read by Karen McCarthy Woolf. Produced by Simon Richardson.
Ted Hughes died in 1998, and we are still arguing about his legacy. In this series of the Radio 3 Essay, leading poets bring a sharp eye to the poems themselves, reminding us why Hughes is regarded as one of the 20th-century's greatest writers, and exploring how the works match up to, inform and contradict what we know of the man.
Ted Hughes is perhaps best known for his poems about creatures - for poems like ‘The Thought Fox’, ‘Pike’ and for books like 'Crow'. In today's essay, Helen Mort thinks about what animals signify in Hughes's work and how they might connect to the way the poet writes about the tricky, mysterious lives of others, whether human or animal.
Recorded before a live audience at the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in Hull in 2018.
Written and read by Helen Mort. Produced by Simon Richardson.
Poet Sean O'Brien considers the reputations of two very different poets: the raw versus the cooked, the shaman versus the rationalist, Ted Hughes versus Philip Larkin.
Ted Hughes died in 1998, and we are still arguing about his legacy. In this series of the Radio 3 Essay, leading poets bring a sharp eye to the poems themselves, reminding us why Hughes is regarded as one of the 20th-century's greatest writers, and exploring how the works match up to, inform and contradict what we know of the man.
Recorded before a live audience at the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in Hull in 2018.
Written and read by Sean O'Brien. Produced by Simon Richardson.
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough braves the fearsome heffalumps as she steps into the world of AA Milne.
There's no secret about the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh. Thousands of people flock to the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex every year to track down Christopher Robin's tree and play Pooh Sticks. In his autobiography, Christopher Robin Milne wrote of a brief but blissful childhood spent amongst the trees with his battered teddy bear. Pooh's forest and the Ashdown Forest are, he wrote, identical.
The writer, Brian Sibley, joins Eleanor for a walk through the forest and an appreciation of one of the saddest endings in literature. Christopher knows he has to leave his friends and return to school. That's enough to drive many adult readers to tears but Brian believes there will always be a boy and his bear sharing adventures in the 100 Acre Wood.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Join Mowgli, Shere Khan and Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough in the lush and dangerous Indian forest of Rudyard Kipling's imagination.
Although he was born in India, Kipling had never visited the central Seoni region where he set The Jungle Book. As Daniel Karlin from Bristol University tells Eleanor, the vivid and detailed descriptions of the forest and its fauna came from books and travellers' tales. Kipling was fascinated by animal behaviour but he wasn't too precious to invert reality when the stories required a dash of cruelty or an expression of nobility.
Today the region contains a renowned tiger reserve. Shere Khan is protected whilst the friendlier creatures of The Jungle decline in number.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Walk through a dark forest and you can't escape the brooding presence of the Brothers Grimm. Unwilling to stray from the path? A glimmer of sharp, white teeth behind that tree? It’s the Brothers Grimm to blame.
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is joined by the writer and illustrator Chris Riddell for a walk through the deep, dark Germanic forest of the Grimms' imagination. The company may be agreeable and the conversation fascinating but be sure to leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Joanna Robertson's earliest childhood memory is that of the baker calling at noon each day, with a basket full of fragrant buns, cakes and bread. It was the first indication of what was to develop into a lifelong love affair with food. For Joanna, food has never just been about nourishment. It has shaped her life in highly personal as well as professional ways, with surprising, funny or poignant results. So much so, that telling her food stories in these Essays amounts to sharing an intimate and revealing autobiography, with deeply personal insights into her life, the places she has lived and worked in, and the people she has met through food.
In the fourth programme, Joanna is in Rome. Initially as a young woman, spending a long summer being initiated into the culinary and cultural delights of the city. And later, she returns as a future wife and mother, getting her daily bread from the same centuries-old bakery as Rossini did while he composed the Barber of Seville. When the time comes, Joanna's baby is welcomed by a family far bigger than merely her relatives: the neighbourhood's grocers, restaurant owners and Rossini's bakery who asked to become a collective of godparents.
Joanna Robertson is a journalist who has lived in several countries and is now based in Paris.
Produced by Arlene Gregorius.
Joanna Robertson's earliest childhood memory is that of the baker calling at noon each day, with a basket full of fragrant buns, cakes and bread. It was the first indication of what was to develop into a lifelong love affair with food. For Joanna, food has never just been about nourishment. It has shaped her life in highly personal as well as professional ways, with surprising, funny or poignant results. So much so, that telling her food stories amounts to sharing an intimate and revealing autobiography, with insights into her life, the places she’s lived and worked in, and the people she's met through food. These stretch from Italians who would become a collective of godparents to her eldest daughter, to world class artists and musicians, ranging from Derek Jarman to Sviatoslav Richter.
In the first programme, Joanna reveals how her love of food already manifested itself when she was a child growing up in different parts of the UK.
Joanna Robertson is a journalist who has lived in several countries and is now based in Paris.
Produced by Arlene Gregorius.
Joanna Robertson's earliest childhood memory is that of the baker calling at noon each day, with a basket full of fragrant buns, cakes and bread. It was the first indication of what was to develop into a lifelong love affair with food. For Joanna, food has never just been about nourishment. It has shaped her life in highly personal as well as professional ways, with surprising, funny or poignant results. So much so, that telling her food stories in these Essays amounts to sharing an intimate and revealing autobiography, with deeply personal insights into her life, the places she has lived and worked in, and the people she has met through food.
In the second programme, Joanna is a young adult. She is now working two jobs in London, involving food and encounters with world class artists, designers and musicians. In Soho, these include Derek Jarman, Howard Hodgkin and Alexander McQueen, while on the South Bank she serves, for example, Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez and Sviatoslav Richter.
Joanna Robertson is a journalist who has lived in several countries and is now based in Paris.
Produced by Arlene Gregorius.
Joanna Robertson's earliest childhood memory is that of the baker calling at noon each day, with a basket full of fragrant buns, cakes and bread. It was the first indication of what was to develop into a lifelong love affair with food. For Joanna, food has never just been about nourishment. It has shaped her life in highly personal as well as professional ways, with surprising, funny or poignant results. So much so, that telling her food stories in these Essays amounts to sharing an intimate and revealing autobiography, with deeply personal insights into her life, the places she has lived and worked in, and the people she has met through food.
In the final programme, Joanna is living in Paris. Fortune has smiled on her in the shape of a second daughter, but when it comes to food, her luck seems to have run out, as neither her children's school lunches nor local restaurants' menus live up to Joanna's expectations which had been stoked by food writers of the calibre of Elizabeth David and MFK Fisher whom Joanna read avidly as a teenager. Now it's chips with everything it seems. Fate has one good surprise in store however: Joanna's local baker, where she gets her daily morning bread, has just been crowned the best baguette maker in Paris.
Joanna Robertson is a journalist who has lived in several countries and is now based in Paris.
Produced by Arlene Gregorius.
Joanna Robertson's earliest childhood memory is that of the baker calling at noon each day, with a basket full of fragrant buns, cakes and bread. It was the first indication of what was to develop into a lifelong love affair with food. For Joanna, food has never just been about nourishment. It has shaped her life in highly personal as well as professional ways, with surprising, funny or poignant results. So much so, that telling her food stories in these Essays amounts to sharing an intimate and revealing autobiography, with deeply personal insights into her life, the places she’s lived and worked in, and the people she's met through food.
In the third programme, Joanna is still living in London as a twenty-something. A passionate love affair ends so badly, that Joanna feels food is no longer for her, and she slides into a severe eating disorder. Brought back from the brink, she then designs her own recovery programme: training as a chef, and life-modelling for painters and sculptors.
Joanna Robertson is a journalist who has lived in several countries and is now based in Paris.
Produced by Arlene Gregorius.
Twm Morys was brought up in the same village as Lloyd George, and in the essay 'Why the Lloyd George museum is so small' (Twm worked in the museum for a while), he explains that the former prime minister is not fondly remembered there. Some think that Lloyd George betrayed his country's cause in order to further himself in England and the Empire, others that his behaviour during the First World War was warmongering (he personally gave many speeches recruiting young welsh men to the army). Twm also recalls that a filthy limerick was found in Lloyd George's wallet at the time of his death, and that as a museum assistant, it wasn't the done thing to draw attention to the verse.
Producer: Megan Jones for BBC Wales
The history of the Welsh people, from the year six hundred to the present, can be traced through poetry - there has not been one generation in that time in which poets haven't kept a record. In this series of Essays, poet and musician Twm Morys brings his personal perspective to five stories looking at aspects of the history of Wales over several centuries, following the fortunes of Welsh figures both eminent and ordinary.
In his fourth essay this week, Twm looks into the experiences of an African man in North Wales in the 1770s, and the stories the community told about how he came to be there. The only black man anyone had ever come across in Cricieth at that time, it seems Jack Ystumllyn may have been an escaped slave, who overcame prejudice to become an extremely popular and respectable man.
Producer: Megan Jones for BBC Wales