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BBC Radio 4


Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives – looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, Fridays at 9pm on BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.


Arts & Ideas

Personal Identity is at the heart of contemporary culture. Political philosophies are built around it and family history is a hobby undertaken by hundreds of thousands. Understanding where you came from is seen as central to understanding who you are. But what if the things that are uncovered are uncomfortable, upsetting or even life-changing?

Matthew Sweet is joined at the Hay Festival by three writers who have hosted podcasts which raise these questions – Joe Dunthorne, whose memoir Children of Radium and BBC Radio 4 series Half Life explore his great-grandfather's work with chemical weapons; Kavita Puri, whose series Three Million told the story of the Bengal Famine, and of British culpability in it; and Jenny Kleeman, whose BBC Radio 4 podcast The Gift tells the stories of lives upended by DNA testing kits. How does the format of the podcast help them explore these complicated subjects?

The Gift, Three Million and The History Podcast, Half Life are all available now on BBC Sounds 

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Podcasting difficult histories

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the impact of the shifting geo political and economic trends on the British class system with specialist guests.
Muriel Zagha is a writer and critic and Author of Finding Monsieur Right and co-host of the podcast Garlic and Pearls.
Lisa Holdsworth is a Leeds based TV script writer who has worked on amongst others Emmerdale, Midsomer Murders, Robin Hood, New Tricks and Waterloo Road. Her latest series Dreamers premiers on Channel 4 this weekend.
Professor Sam Friedman is a sociologist of class and inequality. His latest book with Aaron Reeves is Born To Rule exploring how the British elite has changed over the last 120 years.
Lord Willetts is the President of the Resolution Foundation’s Advisory Council and of the Intergenerational Commission and Chair of the UK Space Agency. He is a visiting Professor at King’s College London and Chair of the Foundation for Science and Technology. Earlier this month he was appointed as Chair of the Regulatory Innovation Office.
Professor Melinda Mills is a demographer based at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, who will talk about new research which suggests that socio-economic status ia social construct with heritable component and genetic consequences.

Producer: Lisa Jenkinson

The Middle Classes

As Radio 4 marks the 5th anniversary of the first COVID lockdown, Free Thinking investigates one of the defining experiences of that period for many people: isolation. It's a word that entered the English language in the 18th century, and arguably its emergence as a concept marked a change in the way people saw their relationships with other people and the wider community, towards a more individualistic society. And yet there's a long history of religious mystics seeking solitude. From Robinson Crusoe to the crew of the International Space Station, via monasticism and Romanticism, Matthew Sweet investigates the histories of isolation and solitude.

With:
Mark Vernon, psychotherapist with a deep interest in the role of solitude in the Western spiritual tradition. His book Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination will be published in June.
Lucy Powell, Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Oxford
Kathleen Burk, Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London, who will talk about isolationism as an aspect of the American political psyche
Jim Hoare, diplomat who opened the first British embassy in North Korea in the 1990s.
Catherine Coldstream, writer and former Carmelite nun, her memoir is Cloistered: My Years As A Nun

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Isolation

Matthew Sweet and his guests discuss our shifting relationship with evidence from the law, to science, academic study and the paranormal. He's joined by Uncanny TV presenter Danny Robins, the former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption and author of The Challenges of Democracy and the Rule of Law, Dr Sarah Dillon from the faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. Dr Jonathan Egid philosopher at SOAS in London and Dr Anthony Milligan a philosopher at Kings College London.

Producer: Lisa Jenkinson

Evidence

Anne McElvoy and guests discuss the issue of uncertainty from scientific discovery and the space race to the shifting geopolitical landscape and how it can act as a catalyst for creativity. She's joined by the entrepreneur and author of Embracing Uncertainty, Margaret Heffernan, journalist and economist Liam Halligan, Astrophysicist Chris Lintott who also presents The Sky at Night, historian Timothy Garton Ash and Professor Victoria Donovan and author of Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East.

Producer: Lisa Jenkinson

Uncertainty

Free Thinking looks at today's world with "a pinch of salt" tonight. From stories in the bible to desalination plants, preserving food to salt taxes: how does salt help us think about the past and present? We use phrases like "being worth your salt" or "dropping salt" meaning to spread rumours. With food writer Bee Wilson, materials scientist Mark Miodownik, the novelist and writer on folklore Zoe Gilbert and artist David Soin Tappeser. Plus, especially salty guest Baga Chipz.
Matthew Sweet hosts.

David Soin Tappeser, along with Himali Singh Soin, is one half of Hylozoic/Desires, whose exhibition Salt Cosmologies is at Somerset House in London until the 27th April.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

A pinch of salt

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss changing course in life, flexible thinking and keeping an open mind with writer and curator Ekow Eshun, philosopher Sophie Grace Chappell, journalist Stephen Bush, author Timandra Harkness & philosopher Richard Bett

Producer: Lisa Jenkinson

Malcolm X, life changes and flexible thinking

From classical thinking to the romcom films in cinema today: Why do we yearn to find our "other half" but struggle with the reality of long term relationships? To discuss Rana Mitter is joined by:
Dr Susie Orbach: a psychotherapist and author of Fat is a Feminist Issue as well as many other books
Classicist Prof Armand D'Angour: he has just published a book about Plato's thinking on love - How to Talk about Love: An Ancient Guide for Modern Lovers
Dr Vittoria Fallanca: She has new research on the opposite figure to Eros - Anteros - the god of requited love, and the avenger of unrequited love, and his place in the history of philosophy
Catherine Wheatley: She is Professor of Film and Visual Culture at Kings College London
Mary Harrod: She is Professor of French and Screen Studies at the University of Warwick.

Producer: Lisa Jenkinson

All we need is love

Matthew Sweet with art critic TJ Clark, who has written about the importance of repeated viewing for appreciating a work of art; philosopher and film historian Lucy Bolton, who's seen a re-issue of Chantel Akerman's film Jeanne Dielman, which documents the crushing routine of a Belgian housewife; philosopher and theologian Clare Carlisle, who has written on the philosopher Kierkegaard, who discussed repetition as a major feature structuring human life, and historian and educationalist Anthony Seldon. Plus composer, dramatist and regular silent film accompanist Neil Brand will be at the piano.

TJ Clark's new collection of Essays is called Those Passions: On Art and Politics.
The BFI is hosting a season of films by Chantal Akerman which runs for 2 months in London with further screenings at selected cinemas - and the 2k restoration of the film Jeanne Dielmann is in cinemas across the UK
Anthony Seldon's books include Truss At 10: 49 Days That Changed Britain; Johnson at 10: The Inside Story and The Fourth Education Revolution
Book by Anthony Seldon
Clare Carlisle's book is called Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Soren Kierkegaard

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Repetition

Matthew Sweet and guests talk about about the tools and processes of decision making today and through history.
Justine Greening is a former Secretary of State for Education who is now working on social mobility and levelling up. Professor Bill Sherman heads the Warburg Institute, which has just opened an exhibition about tarot which the filmmaker and magik scholar K A Laity has visited. Gary Stevenson is a former financial trader and the author of The Trading Game, and the philosopher Constantine Sandis is the author of The Things We Do and Why We Do Them.

Producer: Lisa Jenkinson

Decision Making

Shelagh Delaney wrote A Taste of Honey when she was 18. First performed in 1958, a new National Theatre production stars Lesley Sharp and Kate O'Flynn. Oxford historian Selina Todd has a first night review. Anthony Little, headmaster of Eton College discusses class, tradition and teaching manhood. And discussing the pivotal notion of self-worth in terms of achieving social mobility are Douglas Murray, Selina Todd and Lindsay Johns. Presented by Philip Dodd.

Free Thinking - Class in Britain

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